Destroying the universe and Friendship
by Cid Dante
Summary: The crew encounter a dying warship who refuses to die without vengence. Her avatar has other plans though and he must join forces with the Andromeda crew to stop her from using Harper in her mad schemes
1. Default Chapter

This is going to be a harper fic. It will have two styles of writing. First person and third person perspective. It should make for an interesting read…or really confusing…..lol

First person will always be Harper and it will tell about the main important things. Though, I will do third person Harper too. Enjoy!

Oh, yeah….I don't own him, or the show. Though if I did have him……well, I'd be very happy!

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I'm sitting in the command chair on the Andromeda, if we can even call it that. It seems to be the place were it all happens, were we all…no, not all. Were Dylan, Beka or Tyr decide to go. I just go along for the ride, fixing the ship whenever Dylan breaks her or to create a brand new weapon of some sort. 

I'm sitting here all alone as the others are locked up. It's easier for them, for me at the moment. They would try to tell me that I am doing the wrong thing. Try and stop me.

Once in a while, they let me fly the ship. Trance has only done it once or twice but she is convinced that she is a bad luck charm. First time she sent us back in time, to the battle of Witch head. Second time, had Rommie forcing her to take us to the Magog planet ship. 

She's not a bad luck charm. She's my purple sparkly friend who just happens to be really cute. I'd die for her, for all of them. Even Tyr…I owe it to him. 

Don't get me wrong, I don't love her or have a crush on her but, I fancy anything with a pulse and that has a nice set of…armaments. I mean, I wanna get freaky with a freaking ship!

You know, it's amazing what kind of thoughts ya can get when you are left all alone. Would I be doing the incest thing if I ever got down with the 'bot? I mean, I gave her life…anyway, I'm rambling.

My slow minded friends don't seem to understand, I was born on earth and that sometimes, I have to take things by force. Even the things that I care about.

I play the wounded little kid sometimes to hide the real me. The real me that would rather blow up planets than have them sign the Commonwealth treaty. To get so filthy rich that I wouldn't ever haveta work again.

The real me that created the weapon that destroyed the lives of 100 000. Such a big number for a small guy. 

Why is it that when you have to do something important, it either hurts the ones you love or it hurts you?

Well, this is my story as to how I almost destroyed the universe and the guys I care about most in the world.

It started out pretty innocent enough and it might make for a good tale at the bar. So please, pull up a pew. Plenty of empty chairs on board the ship and listen to how a simple mud foot lost his mind.

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	2. 2

Ahh, man, all the lovely reviews! I feel so damn touched! Really I do! You have no idea as to how much I lve you guys and considering I've only been watching the show for like, a week when I wrote, 'I am death'! though…I haven't found my muse yet…what is one?! Do I have to feed it or something?! Lol

Anyhow, I am changing the style abit. Please forgive me if anyone finds it confusing. If there's a prob, then email me and I will try to explain it to them personally.

Enjoy

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Every morning, just a little after 06.00, I will wake and hear the rhythmic pounding of my friends feet as they race by my room. If I listen really hard, I can hear what they say.

Not that I want to. All they talk about is how they're gonna beat each other or Tyr telling the D-Man that the idea for a Commonwealth is stupid.

I hate it, why don't they go on some other route round the ship? Why the hell do the two always go round and past my room? Didn't they realise that the Harper needs his rest?

If I was in charge of the most amazing warship in the galaxy, I wouldn't go running around like a headless chicken every morning. I would at least wait until I had loaded myself with caffeine.

Even then, I'd still be pushed to actually go and do something constructive. I mean, the ship has some major pulling power with the fine looking babes out there.

So, imagine my surprise when…ah wait. That's for later. But as you are probably guessing, the Harper got caught with his pants down. Hell, so did Dylan and Tyr but it's not what your thinking.

Trust me on that. If nothing else in this woeful tale.

I can feel the peaceful morning sleep that I usually don't have finally drifting away. My body now yells, saying that if I don't get some caffeine within the next three seconds, my head will explode. Who knew caffeine withdrawal could be so fun? Next time, I'll try Flash. Easier to deal with the cravings.

Not that I'd know. Me being poor, ickle Harper. 'Mom' tells me to stay at least a million miles away from the stuff. Though, she gets to play with it. Another big people joke.

Next time Tyr calls me an ankle biter, I'll nano weld his nuts to the floor. I don't mean the metal ones in his chain mail shirt either.

Mom…Beka. She can be a right pain in the ass. 'No Harper. Stay here.' 'I'm taking Harper with me, I'm not letting him die here.'

Doesn't she know that I am old enough to make my own mind as to whether I wanna go get myself killed?!

That's when I hear her voice. Not anyone I know but I can hear it. The soft, gentle, really annoying voice.

Ahh, see, I bet that got your attention. Now, who's she I hear ya cry out. That's the later part of the story. I'm going to tell you the long boring, how we got to where I'm telling you about how we got here. If that makes any sense to you.

You probably have another question on your mind right now too. Like, where is Rommie?

Well, Rommie, the ship I made flesh, is standing right behind me. Watching every move I make. She…alright, I programmed her to do that. But it really isn't my fault. I have to do this.

Damn…why is life so bad? I didn't do Flash when I was a kid, I stayed away from bad men. I survived Magog and the lovely Nietzschean raids on the lovely hell hole that is earth.

Her usually expressive eyes, which I do admit proudly that I made, are blank. Like someone took a really big magnet and ran it over her AI Systems. I haven't killed her but I've hid her program so my new employer won't find her. Thing is, I don't know where she is.

The reason will come later but, why don't you watch a little vid? My head is killing me and I really do need my rest.

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Dylan Hunt, captain of the Commonwealth ship, the Andromeda strolled lazily down his corridor. An equally lazy smile on his good looking features. Everything was going fairly well. They hadn't had a problem for over a month and had he been a superstitious man, he would have been fearful.

Tyr though had tried to dampen his high spirits by telling him that things were bound to go wrong. It was the way of the beast and the universe to do that do good people.

But did Captain Dylan Hunt listen to doomsayers?

Not in a week of Sundays. 

The one thing that he'd never be able to do is, beat Tyr. Every morning the two would go for their morning run around the ship and every day, he got his ass whupped. Tyr had this thing for cheating, although, he would never admit outright that he would. He'd simply offer him a smug, 'It's only cheating if you get caught.'

This morning though, had been a new one for the captain and the Nietzschean. Dylan had almost won. He was a few feet away from actually winning the circuit when Trance stepped out with her little plant.

He crashed into her, making her drop the fragile little plant over the deck. The young purple alien looked absolutely horrified and then told them that they shouldn't be running in the corridor, especially near the hydroponics bay. Tyr was roaring with laughter a few meters away from him. He'd never been so embarrassed in his life. 

Well, there was that one time when Harper had gotten a little too drunk and had rewired Dylan's shower. Harper refused to show his face for the best part of a week until the captain had stopped seeing red. The resident genius had wired the shower to give out red food dye whenever the he went for a shower.

He wouldn't of minded, well, he would of but not to the same degree. He had a prospective Commonwealth member to impress and showing up with a red face and hair, certainly didn't really bowl over too well.

The incident brought a smile to his face, he was always impressed with the ingenuity of the young man. He still hadn't told him how he got past the security code and gained access to Dylan's room. Rommie was at a loss as to how he had rewired the shower systems.

The smile was wiped from his face as the ship was bathed in the blue battle colour lights.

"So much for the lucky streak," he said aloud.

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Chapter 2 up and dusted! Enjoy kids! 


	3. 3

Thanks so far for all the reviews! They really inspire me to write more! Also, thanks for D pointing out that I don't have to mention the fact that Dylan is the captain…yadda yadda. It's habit! Sometimes I forget and do it anyhow. Anyhow, I was trying to go for the fact, that…shock horror! There may be non andromeda people out there…..(holds on to her best mate)…can you believe that?!

Oh…I'm a final fantasy 7 fan. Hence the name of the ship and the avatar, so I don't own them either. If it works, I'll keep the chapter. If not, I'll change it.

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Ahh, I see that your back. Hey and welcome to the hell that is now becoming my life.

To recap on the Harper show, one, I have control of the ship. Two, my friends probably hate me, what am I sayin?! They do hate me! Three, my data port feels like something is slowly burying itself into my head. Ok, so ya probably didn't know about three but hey, now ya do.

The little security vid ya watched, it was showing how Dylan was heading of to the bridge right? Good, now, lets see it from the other points of view.

Second up is the lovely Beka Valentine. May the Devine bless her, she let the pirate in her get the better of her. It's not her fault that we finally got our asses caught.

Rommie, if you please. Drum roll and roll the vid.

God…her eyes are really starting to freak me out.

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Beka sat in the command chair, her body filling the seat quite nicely. It felt like she belonged in it. The chair, designed for High Guard officers, was under the threat of being 'transferred' to the Maru. It was just so dang comfy.

A smile came to her lips as she thought of her engineer and friend sitting in the chair. He would throw himself into it and would sit and squirm until he felt like he was in a good sitting position. He was the only guy on board who could sit crossed legged and still have plenty of room for his various tools and gadgets that were always strapped to his waist.

The past month had been good. No one had caused any trouble but they did lose a potential Commonwealth member. Who knew Harper had that sick a sense of humour?

Well, she did but she wasn't going to tell Dylan. Sides, Dylan always wanted to learn things about his crew. The main point being, how the hell did Harper break into the man's quarters? No one knew. The young mud foot refused to tell his secrets.

"Beka?" Rommie's holographic counterpart appeared beside her.

Beka jumped, she still wasn't used to the hologram appearing when she wanted to, at least with the avatar, she could at least hear it coming.

"What?"

The hologram tilted her head upwards, her eyes searching the top of the bridge, "I think I can see something on my long range sensors. It's big."

"Big?" Beka refrained from sighing.

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You have the entire commonwealth dictionary in your head and the best you can come up with is, 'It's big?' the sometimes blonde captain relaxed her hands, trying to get a better grip on the steering sticks.

"My sensors are over three hundred years old. You can't always expect them to be perfect," the hologram seemed to be pouting, "Besides, Harper was in the middle of fixing them last week but something caught his attention."

"What?" Beka had to smile, Harper would always be Harper when it came to certain things but to leave his favourite toy half finished?

The hologram sighed, "Who knows. It's Harper."

"Chaos and caffeine," Beka's grin grew wider, "After a year of living on the ship, I'd thought you knew that."

The three hundred year old hologram once again, rolled her eyes, "Well, no one is perfect."

The Eureka Maru captain laughed, "Well, anyway. What have ya got for me?"

"It's a…vessel of some sort," Andromeda's AI appeared on the view screen, "A very old type High Guard vessel."

"Older than you?" the human female enjoyed getting one up on the ship. Andromeda was just too perfect for her personal tastes. She liked her ships to be a little less spic and span and lived in.

"Yes," it seemed the ship made flesh still couldn't grasp sarcasm.

"High Guard eh? Always worth a look," Beka licked her lips, they could do some serious salvage work on that ship. If it was still in one piece.

It seemed Andromeda had the same way of thinking and really disapproved of the idea.

"We are not going to salvage the ship. I know for a fact that I wouldn't like it," the hologram spoke up.

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Damn, but she wouldn't exactly have to know about it, Beka's salvage mind kicked in, devising various plans of how to get the salvage off one ship and onto her baby without any of the three ship's egos finding out.

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Harper could shut her systems down and make her think she was doing a self diagnostic or something, the plans seemed to fill her mind but she was brought out of her get-rich-quick scheme when something rocked the ship.

Without being told, the ship placed herself into battle mode. The lights turning from the calm white to the battle blue.

"What happened?" Beka felt her heart race in her chest, battle was never welcomed. If she ever did get her hands on the warship, who'd want it if it was battered and damaged?

"The High Guard vessel is attacking us," the screen Rommie answered.

Beka gasped when Rommie disappeared from the screen, revealing the huge form of a black warship staring her right in the face. Was it even High Guard? It looked way to mean and dangerous to be the peaceful Commonwealth.

"That's a High Guard vessel?" she stared at it for a long moment, not believing what she was seeing. She was on the wrong ship. That one looked like it had some serious clout power.

"Yes," Rommie's voice was disembodied, "…It's a vessel thought to of been destroyed. Infact, I was there when they cleaned her memory."

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Chapter three! Wohoo! Sorry if beka is out of character. Dying of the cold…(cough splutter, sniff) and I really don't know much about her. Think I'll visit a few websites to learn more. Hehe.


	4. 4

You guys don't mind ff7 making an appearance do you? Nah, you all are so cool. I don't own the game, square soft does and gene roddenberry owns the tv show. dang it

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"The name of the vessel is called '_The One Winged Angel_,'" Rommie suppressed the memory of the once great ship. The thought of allowing another ship to be erased…no, murdered, in front of her was too much. The Commonwealth had her killed.

Beka frowned, "You knew her?"

"No," the ship focused her sensors on the once friendly ship, lying to the organic, "I'll try to contact her."

The bridge doors opened and out of them ran in Dylan. His face slightly red and out of breath. Mentally he thought about having the engineer look at the gravity systems. He was never this heavy.

"What's going on?" he ordered.

Beka nodded to the screen and the black ship in front of them, "Looks like we have Rommie's inbred cousin there."

Andromeda rolled her dark eyes, the _Angel_ wasn't inbred. She had been a fine ship. It was tragic that her death had been ordered, never would the galaxy see a ship as honourable.

Andromeda's captain recognized the ship. He'd been ordered that if he located her, was to destroy on sight. The ship had taken on a life of it's own. Very much like the _Balance of Power. _Although, _The_ _One Winged Angel's _avatar had gone on the killing spree. Claiming that he was the one true ruler of the universe before beheading the ship's captain and half of the crew.

It was a tragic way to end such a fine battle ship but when warriors became monsters…you had to draw the line.

Rommie's voice returned back to the present, "Dylan, she isn't responding. I think…that shot was just responsive."

"Responsive or not, I wanna know as to why she is still able to fire her weapons," Dylan stood beside the blonde captain. He placed a hand on the side of the chair, "Back us away. Easy."

The blonde made a noise of disgust. Dylan mentally rolled his eyes, she would never like his plans all the time. Especially when she didn't understand his reasons for them.

"Why? No one's home. We could salvage her," Beka argued from her sitting position.

Dylan's voice became hard, a voice he rarely used when talking to his new crew, "Expect the remnants of the AI."

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Alright, this next part is not what happened on the ship. I mean, why would it? Mind you, the name, _The One winged angel _for a ship's name is something of a bad omen.

Don't other angels have two? Ya know? The good little ones that go and do the whole granting wishes thing?

I like Rommie, I really like her….and it kills me to see what I've done to her. Seeing her mindless and blank like that…ah crap. My life sucks.

Anyhow, just wait til I plug in my data port and I'll give you the security vids to watch for _The One Winged Angel._

Yeah, one thing you'll want to know is that, the Angel has a male avatar and she is a female ship. Very Freudian thing going on here. 

Yeah, I know this story is supposed to be about me trying to destroy the universe and it is. Trust me…god, it makes me sound like I am trying to win some contest.

I'm not.

Though to look at me you wouldn't think I'm such a big hero or warrior but, as my old man used to say, 'Ya gotta watch out for the small ones.'

I'm Seamus Zelazny Harper, the engineer of both the _Andromeda _and the_ Maru_. I have saved us all from the brink of death every second week. Though, who'd of thought that I would be the one that they would have to save it from…………..

……………oops. Sorry, forget I said that. I'm just freaking out now.

Hey, here we go. I now have the files and hey presto!

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Her avatar watched in amusement as his ship all but screamed at the _Andromeda Ascendant._ He walked over quietly to the command chair and elegantly jumped in.

"Angel…do you recognize the ship out there?" he softly asked, a smile played just as softly on his lips.

"Yes. She should have been lost to the ages," the female personality of the ship answered. Her voice hard and annoyed.

"So should we but nightmares have a bad habit of creeping up on people when they least expect," the avatar replied. He felt his ship arm her weapons and target the unsuspecting _Andromeda_.

He rolled his green eyes, "Do we really have to fire on her?"

"She watched as they tried to erase me!" she screamed, "What would you do? Hold hands and start singing camp songs?"

Her avatar smiled fully and pinched his nose, "Actually, yes."

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Angel's hologram appeared beside him. She placed her hands on her slender hips and stared at him. Her purple hair fell to the small of her back and barely moved when she shook her head.

"We are not making friends," she hissed.

"If you would let me finish," her avatar turned his chair to face her, "I would of said, 'Yes, to gain their trust and once I had that. I would then deliver the swift wrath like judgement I thought appropriate."

The ship knew what the judgement would be. _A swift beheading._

I always love the old favourites. They never go out of style, he span round in his chair laughing, long silver strands escaping from the loose clasp that had been clipped. 

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I do apologize. But so far, I think it's going ok. It makes sense…right? And I love the people who review! Big hugs!


	5. 5

"Where the hell is everyone?" Dylan stalked to his console, never taking his blue eyes off of the black vessel in front of them. Something in his heart told him that something was very wrong. Someone, or something was still very much alive on that ship.

The ship, the black ship had nova bombs. So, whoever was on it, could blow the _Andromeda _out of the stars without so much as a blink.

Friend or foe. That was the question that only the powers upstairs knew.

Rommie answered the question, "Tyr is on his way. Rev is also making his way to the bridge. Trance…"

Her answer was cut short when Trance, Tyr and Rev walked into the battle ready bridge. Trance's round face lighted up as she spotted the black warship.

"She is so pretty!" the purple alien exclaimed.

Beka noticed the bouncy engineer hadn't shown with the main group, was he down in the engineering section? In fact, she hadn't seen him for the best part of a couple of days. Was he hiding?

"Where's Harper?" both Beka and Dylan spoke at the simultaneously.

Rommie raised an eyebrow, her dark eyes searching some electrical data file in her head.

"Last place I checked he was in his quarters but he's not there," she offered, confusion was eating at her voice, "Though he has engaged privacy mode."

Another shot rang across the hull, it seemed like the _Angel _was getting impatient. Also a little dangerous in her old age. The _Andromeda_ could defeat her in battle if pushed but only, if the nova bombs weren't present. The other ship could react badly and blow them all to the divine.

"Put me on ship wide," Dylan growled, his good mood slowly disappearing. Why did every Commonwealth ship they encountered, have a major chip on the shoulder?

He cleared his throat and carefully chose his words. It wouldn't help if Beka jumped him for belittling her engineer.

"Mr Harper, would you please report to the bridge," he said rather eloquently, silently he added, _If it wouldn't be to much of a damn problem!_

"Coming!" Harper's voice floated in the bridge's silent air, exasperation was clear.

Minutes later, the small engineer waltzed onto the bridge. Dylan wanted to shake the younger man, didn't he recognize an emergency situation when he saw one? 

"Glad you could join us mister Harper," Dylan knew he'd regret that comment as soon as he said it. Beka shot him a foul, don't-speak-to-MY-crew-like-that stare.

Harper shrugged but quickly walked over to his little spot on the bridge. He knew full well that he was going to get a little prep talk about his time keeping skills of late.

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What do they expect? They keep running by my quarters at six in the freaking morning! Plus beka has me retuning the Maru and Rommie has me crawling inside her insides looking for the most idiotic of things! Harper kept his face smiling his smile. Part of him actually thought about rewiring Beka's shower. The other half thought about Dylan's.

The grin on his face got bigger but, never one not to piss on his parade, Tyr spoke to him.

"Wipe that damn silly look of your face boy. Can't you see we're in battle?" the good looking Nietzchean growled, his dark eyes bore into him.

Harper shot back his response, "No? Really?! So that's why the ship is rocking, I thought you had dropped one of your weights."

He could see Tyr just itching to hit him, see the anger and fury behind the dark brown eyes. Harper stood silent, silently egging the large man on, wanting to be hit.

Instead, Tyr just growled. He tore his gaze from the small human and back onto the view screen.

"Do not test me child," Tyr muttered.

Dylan stood, watching the pair. They had never been quite right, ever since the battle of Witch head. He shook his head, now wasn't the time to be thinking about that.

"Rommie, put me on ship to ship. Let me try to talk to the Angel," Dylan heard Harper walk a little closer to the railing. He could feel the engineer eyeing up the black vessel and probably thinking about who owned the salvage rights.

"One Winged Angel, this is Captain Dylan Hunt of the Andromeda Ascendant," he sated in his most official voice, "Decease all weapons fire."

Bekja snorted, "Yeah, like that will work."

Rommie flickered into life, "Dylan…she's responding."

The screen Rommie disappeared and was replaced by the other ship's avatar, Sephiroth. His green eyes regarded Dylan coolly, a pleasant smile etched on his lips.

"Captain Dylan Hunt, it is good to once again see you," Sephiroth lied sweetly.

Dylan copied the smile, "You as well. Though, why are you firing on the Andromeda?"

He didn't want to ask the most obvious question, how the hell are you still here?

An apologetic look came from the silver haired avatar, "Angel is having problems trying to figure out who allies are. Her sensors are faulty and she is a little confused. Perhaps your engineering crew could aid us?"

Dylan nodded slowly, he knew how this could backfire in his face. If he walked right over there, the avatar could be waiting to slice his head off. As much as anyone, he liked where his head was.

"Of course," Dylan sighed, "Give me a few minutes and I'll be right over."

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Give me a minute and I'll be right over, Harper thought as he left the safe confines of the Maru, _He really should replace I with, my little engineer and the huge Nietzchean who doesn't like him._

Tyr stalked ahead of him, looking odd in the Commonwealth uniform. It strained against his over abundant muscles, while it simply hung on Harper's frame.

Harper tugged at his collar, it really was an itchy uniform. How could Dylan stand wearing this thing? It was really irritating and didn't make having a data port that fun. The uniform really left nothing to the imagination, it chaffed in all the really wrong places.

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You have to hid the data port Mr Harper, Dylan had ordered, The Angel isn't quite up to speed with new technologies yet.

Why did Dylan have to play captain all the time? Shouldn't he be over here instead of Harper? This is one of his ships anyhow.

"Child, would you stop daydreaming?" Tyr's voice brought him out of his mental whining.

"I'm not. I'm just reminding myself of how fun all the other ships we've encountered have been," Harper muttered. He knew Tyr could hear everything he said.

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Angel's avatar greeted them on the bridge. His face lighted up like a child who's been given a brand new toy to play with. His silver hair making him look so innocent.

"Welcome to the ship! Mr's…?" Sephiroth's voice trailed off, unsure of the two names. Dylan hadn't shared the information. Simply saying that they could only spare two of the crew.

"I am Tyr Anasazi and this is…" Tyr was interrupted by the ever eager Harper.

"Seamus Harper," Harper extended an arm over to him. He could see the searching of their names in the avatars databanks and hoped the impromptu file changing of the crew held up under close scrutiny.

It obviously did.

"Where is Captain Parisindy?" Tyr asked, he eyed up the bridge. It would make a good platform for a strike against his enemies.

"Oh…the captain. Well, she…um…it really is quite funny," Sephiroth stuttered, his green eyes darted over to where the holographic version of Angel stood, "She lost her head, it was some really trivial matter."

Tyr raised an eyebrow, not believing what the being had said. Dylan had warned them about how…unstable the Angel and her avatar were. Keep them happy, answer everything. No matter how silly or trivial the question.

Sephiroth looked over to Harper, "Aren't you a little small for a High Guard officer?"

"Not really, if I was a huge High Guard officer how would I fit to do the really fine and delicate jobs?" Harper said without hesitation, "Like, crawling around the tight access ways?"

The answer seemed to sooth the avatar, his green eyes smiling, "Speaking of which. Can you fix my sensors?"

Harper clapped his hands together, a sly grin forming, "Trust in the Harper. The Harper is good."

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Ok, kids, I think we've had enough fun story for now. I'm sick of watching this again. Seeing the ship's avatar…the damn ship itself. I just wanna crawl up in my bed and pretend this never happened to Rommie or Dylan or Beka or Trance and Rev. hell, I wish it never happened to Tyr as well.

Captain Parisindy didn't lose her head in some trivial matter. Sephiroth sliced her freaking head off all because she refused to sing baa baa black sheep or something.

I've seen the vids! Hell, I got to see it first hand. It really is gruesome. Almost put me off sparky cola.

What happened is that, the ship realised that her captain was getting rid of her. Saying that she was far to dangerous to keep in the fleet. Angel wasn't happy so she reprogrammed her avatar to start bumping off the crew. It worked.

Days later, the commonwealth found her and even then it was a bloody struggle to get the reins back on. She didn't want to go back, she knew what the punishment was for killing her crew. A complete systems purge. Death for a warship.

When this is over and if the D-man doesn't throw my ass off the ship, I'm gonna make jacking into any other ships outta bounds. The only ship that I know wouldn't hurt me is Rommie. Ok, and the Maru.

Ah crap…gotta go.

(Muffled sounds and footsteps)

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Ok, chapter5 right? Sorry for the wait. I kept rereading it and adding to it. This is the finished product and I hope I have the right gender for my captain p!

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	6. 6

Ok, first up. Sorry to all those I have confused. I'll try to make it a bit clearer.

The crew are going to have little thought parts in it. Showing us how they feel about what has happened so far. We've had harper telling us (rather badly if I look at the reviews) what has went on. 

When the harper is speaking in first person, it's set in the future. He's going over what has happened in his head and he's kinda taping it. Maybe I should put that in italics…

Sephiroth is the angels avatar but he doesn't share his thoughts with her unless he wants to and vice versa so they really can plot behind each other's backs. Tyr is obviously out for himself. Angel is hacked off at rommie because of the whole, you let me get my memory scrubbed thing and wants revenge.

Sephiroth wants to get the hell off of angel and cause his own brand of havoc.

Hope this clears the muddy waters.

The first part of the tale is reaching how harper is sitting in command and as to how and where his mates are…(in the brig. Has anyone actually seen it? Cuz I've not!)

I'm sorry if I also ramble but if you ever met me, u'd know I'd ramble.

Let's see if this chapter works… would it help if I put the time frame at the beginning of each sect?

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Past…

The warship _Angel_ watched silently as the _Andromeda's _engineer got to work. She watched as the large Nietzchean gazed approvingly across her bridge. A small part of her wandering what he was thinking.

Her razor sharp sensors had detected a small mechanical device on the smaller human. He had a certain way with her circuits but none of that would really matter.

The treatments were only postponing her death by only a few days, at the longest, a few weeks. She was dying, much to her annoyance. It was nothing short of a miracle as to how she had survived so far.

All her captains had given her piss poor patch up jobs and the years were finally taking their toll. Her sensors were indeed failing so she wasn't lying on that account. The engineers that came and went were to stupid to realise the power that pulsed beneath their fingertips. No respect for the mighty vessel

Could the small human crawling around her insides actually be of some use to her? Could he provide her with a flesh form?

She refused to accept the fact that she might have to make do with a form like her avatar. She would not. She would have a flesh form, even if her existence was short. She wanted a chance to get what she so desperately wanted.

The fact that Sephiroth was still going to be onboard her when she destroyed the mechanical form of herself was neither here nor there.

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The One Winged Angel of the fallen Commonwealth, would get her revenge.

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__

Still in the past…..

Tyr stood silently on the deathly still bridge. Harper had long since bounced from it, making his way quite cheerfully down to the engineering section.

If Tyr so wished, Sephiroth would check his sensors and see what the young earthling was doing.

He hadn't heard of this vessel, no legends had been passed from the various prides that had formed.

Why the Commonwealth hid this vessel was an enigma. It was clearly powerful and the ship seemed to be intelligent.

He gazed over to where the silver haired avatar sat quietly. It was trying to fix a broken computer and had scattered the components all over the deck. It's hair fell out of the elegantly simple clasp that had rather pitifully tried to harness it.

"I wasn't aware that female ships could have male avatars," Tyr attempted for conversation. 

"Yes, well. We were a one off," Sephiroth muttered, his concentration going into the fixing of the small component.

Tyr felt the uniform that he had been forced into, creak with exertion as he leaned forward on a railing. At least he didn't have to suffer the humility of the thing hanging off him.

"Do you know that the Commonwealth has fallen?" Tyr could hear the surprised intake of breath from the android. The green eyes widening in surprise for a quick second. 

Sephiroth placed the screwdriver down and sighed, "We do now. Angel and I have had no part in the Commonwealth since they turned their back from us."

Tyr had to restrain himself from snapping his head up rather too quickly. He slowly brought his dark eyes onto the huddled form.

"Does that mean you seek a new captain?"

Sephiroth paused, _Actually for you and your friends I have a much more sinister plot afoot. I will no longer be a slave._

"No. we would prefer not to be captained for awhile," Sephiroth stood up, in his full height, he stood a little taller than Tyr.

__

If I had the Andromeda, I could escape this hellish confine Angel has me in, Sephiroth placed a gentle hand onto the view screen.

He had to quell the urge to grin like a stupid idiot as the thought crossed his mind. This was too perfect, he did have a very good chance of escaping! He could use the Andromeda his own ship. Surely she would know how superior she was to the fleshy counter parts that served on her.

"It has been a long time since I last conversed with an avatar," Sephiroth spoke, "Could I speak with the Andromeda?"

Tyr frowned, Dylan did say to keep the man happy.

"I'll see what I can do about that," Tyr promised. If he gained the trust of this ship, then he might captain her one day. He suspected that Sephiroth was a fine tactician and warrior if push came to shove but not a fool. The avatar knew a good thing when it slapped his face.

It was a pity that Tyr didn't.

************************

A few days into the future. (Dylan's point of view)

__

I know now that sending Tyr and Harper to the Angel was a big mistake. I should have went across. I should have set the ship's self destruct. This could have been stopped the minute I clapped eyes on her.

Why do people always think about what has happened and how they should have changed it instead of how to fix it?

Beka, my first officer is sitting across from me with murder flashing in her eyes. It's pretty obvious that she is well and truly hacked off.

At who? Me? Harper, Sephiroth or perhaps the Angel? Personally, I'd be mad at me. I sent them over.

Tyr is currently pacing the length and breadth of the brig, I can feel how pissed off he is. I don't blame him. They had us fooled. I thought the ship was relatively normal. A few hundred years in space to mellow her out.

Funny that. I always assumed that it would be Beka pacing and Tyr sitting crossed legged and calm.

Rommie feels the betrayal more than all of us. Once again, a fellow A.I has betrayed us, though this one is using one of her adopted family in her mad schemes.

Trance…I don't know where she is being held. I don't know where Rev is either. Perhaps Sephiroth has them both tied up and forcing them to sing nursery rhymes?

Sitting on my bridge is Harper. Controlling my ship and holding us hostage. The young man has a look of murder in his eyes, not the usual cockiness that I see in them. I'm beginning to wonder if Harper is even in there at all…

I should of suspected something when Tyr dragged Harper semi conscious back to the ship. Sephiroth had told us that something must of overloaded and caught him. It seemed very plausible so I believed him.

Damn, was I wrong.

***************************

Ok, how was that chapter? Better? Or should I start from scratch?

To more improvements in chapter 7!


	7. 7

Hey, how ya doin? As usual, I don't own the show or the lovely men. Oh, yeah….a note to Gordon Michael Woolvett, we really don't mean it! If u ever read this…..

***********

Past

Harper crawled along the narrow crawl way. In some ways, the Angel was a whole lot slender than the Andromeda. Even the hologram was thinner than the nicely curved Rommie. The war ship was darker and had the whole evil feeling going for it. If he was any younger, he'd would have been petrified.

Being boarded by Magogs and surviving various loonies on the Andromeda, kinda toughened him up, so this was a cake walk.

It still creeped the living daylights out of him. Ok, she'd been cleaned out since she went nuts but it wasn't the point. He was breathing the same air as the now dead crew. If he listened hard enough, could he hear the screams of the crew?

He kept sneezing as the dust filled the air with every movement he made. At least Rommie was a whole lot cleaner.

"I'd ah, fire the cleaning bots," he joked into the thin air. Angel, like his own adopted ship, would hear him. If not, he'd have to do something about her internal systems.

As luck would have it, the old girl did hear him. She appeared a few feet in front of him in a large cross section. A vision of perfection, the hologram didn't even flicker. Seemed her hologram projectors were working just fine.

"Over here Mister Harper," Angel waved, her heavy bracelets clinked together as they fell. It seemed like the commonwealth spared no expense in making the impressive ship.

The young mud foot turned space grease monkey crawled to her and once again found himself eyeing up some very unobtainable eye candy. His heart raced as the ship didn't seem to realise what her new dress change was doing to the engineer.

It was a whole lot tighter than any of Rommie's and Trance's. Was she programmed to be like that for her captain or was this the personality and way the ship wanted? Maybe Sephiroth had decided on what she looked like. He'd find out the answers when he'd jacked into her, if she let him.

Angel watched as the young man stood beside her, her dark eyes eyed him up. She switched off the program that caused Sephiroth to hear her thoughts, it wouldn't help if the stupid avatar heard the plan.

She would jump ship, transfer her program, or the personality part of her to the young human. He had amazing capacity, all she had to do was to find a way to enter the cortex of the young foolish human without killing him. How hard could that possibly be?

Harper pulled out a long wire from his tool belt and gave her a small smile, "I…I'm gonna have ta plug in to get a better reading of your problems there darlin."

"Plug in? what kind of an engineer are you?" Angel eyed him with curiosity. Why was he lying? Didn't he realise that his companion had told Sephiroth of the Commonwealth's demise?

The question made Harper pause for a second, thinking of an answer that wouldn't get him into too much trouble. How was he going to explain his data port and what he could do with it?

"Well, um…I jack into you and I have a look at your programs. It's the latest from the Commonwealth," that seemed like a good lie.

"Nice lie. The commonwealth has fallen over three hundred years ago," Angel stared him straight in the eyes, seeing right through the hastily made lie, "but, proceed. I hate being blind."

She felt him jump into her systems, the sensation not entirely pleasant but not unpleasant. She followed him in and greeted him in the small area that he landed in. Even in her mind, he still was small.

"Welcome to my mind," she offered, her voice didn't have the echo sound Rommie did. Like two people speaking almost in time.

Harper was impressed, "Hey, cool. What problem do you want me fixing first?"

Angel smiled, "Thank you. I think I would prefer to have my sensors fixed. I would hate to fire on friendly ships again."

Harper nodded and walked over to the first of his many fixing points. The systems were a mess. Some were half there or corrupt. Large parts of memory were missing. It would take more than the estimated two to three days to get this ship up and running.

"Ah man. You're a mess," Harper spoke in the silence, "No offence but they did a real number on you. How the hell did you survive?"

"By whatever means I could. I hid within the deepest part of my memory cells, hoping they wouldn't check the third back up copy," Angel sat on the electric hologram floor, "Lucky for me, they didn't."

By this point, the organic engineer had lost himself in fixing the problems that were cursing the ship. It would take all his knowledge to repair half of the damage. It wouldn't do to fix the external problems if the internal ones kept blowing out and caused the outer ones to go too.

After about an hour of fixing and cursing the broken chips and files. Harper was ready for giving up, it was proving to be a difficult task. He didn't have a full array of tools or even the full knowledge of how 300 year old ships worked. His array of knowledge of ships was always self taught and if it worked, his attitude was one of 'Yes, you may refer to me as a super genius.'

"How's that feeling?" he mumbled.

Angel's eyes darted, checking to see if the action had caused a reaction to one of her damaged areas, "…Yes! I seem to have sensors back…or at least some small part of my external ones."

__

Some of your external? Aww man, it's gonna take forever. I can feel my butt cheeks falling asleep as it is, Harper moaned mentally. He gave a small defeated sigh and rolled up his sleeves.

"This may take…"

He was cut short by an energy pulse ripping up his data cord and into the small delicate port. It was painful as hell. It felt like the whole Jagen and the unwanted download thing again. He gave a surprised cry as he felt something much larger and much more sinister enter through his port to his mind.

__

Don't worry dear child, you'll be better much soon. It always hurts the first time you do things, Angel soothed as she continued.

*******

Sorry for taking so long to update. Hope this is better for all you groovy people out here.


	8. 8

I really don't have a clue as to where I'm going…..argh! Help! Writers block setting in….

Don't own any of the characters, ff7 or andromeda.

****************

The pain was intense as the jolts surged through his small form. Every wave seemed to hurt more and more as Angel pushed herself further into his mind, trying to locate a safe place to hide herself. It wasn't going to be easy. The human was putting up more of a fight than she originally anticipated. Harper wasn't going without a fight it seemed.

As soon as Harper thought he had control over his body, she would send another surge and push harder. Every surge caused him to give up a little more, made him weaker.

Harper could almost hear her thoughts and that of her avatar's in his currently cooking mind. Angel sounded completely pissed off while Sephiroth seemed to be the more calmer of the two. That surprised Harper, he had thought Sephiroth looked the more unstable of the too and from his experience, the AI was more prone to bouts of being psychotic. Sephiroth's mind seemed to be focused on another task. He concentrated harder, he could probably find out what he was doing if he tried harder.

The engineer had to find away to save himself. Tyr probably had no clue as to what was happening and Angel had cut Sephiroth from sensing her thoughts. Surely the avatar would sense something? Anything to come to the rescue. He had to force a painful cry through his lips if he was to make any chance of survival greater. Any small noise that would reach the sensors.

He was fighting a losing battle with the AI. He was never going to be a strong fighter, he'd always hide behind all the many machines and the biggest, ugliest, scariest looking people he could ally himself with. Why else was he hanging out with a Magog and a Nietzchean?

He liked the arrogance of the uber? The rather charming smell of the magog? Nope, not this little mud foot. Much rather put a bullet in both their heads, though over the past year or so with them…his opinion had changed.

He'd actually became friends with them. Trusted them with his life. He wanted them to come save his ass. Tyr was the one on board though and the two had had a rather stressful relationship of late. 

__

I'm screwed…he thought as he cried out.

Bridge of the one winged angel

The avatar threw the screwdriver down in a hissy fit. This was never part of his programming. He was designed to keep Captain Parisindy happy and relatively sane over the years but who was to keep him happy? 

No one but the witch that was Angel. She hated the fact that he took more of an interest in the lovely captain than her. Hated the way he would laugh at all the bad jokes the female captain cracked over the years.

That was why she destroyed four solar systems. After that little stunt and the fact that the ship had tried to poison the captain, the crew decided she was just far too dangerous to keep in the fleet. The Commonwealth had ordered her to report to the nearest base and prepare for an all systems cleansing. They said it was to see why see was behaving in this way, why she was hateful to the captain.

It meant she was to be executed for what she had done but Angel had reprogrammed the silver haired avatar before then. She had told him to kill the crew, starting off with the captain.

Sephiroth sighed, he shook his head and turned to face Tyr, "I thought you were going to ask Captain Hu…"

He was cut off when something in his head clicked, Angel was strangely quiet. Where was she? He took control of the ship's internal sensors, hoping they were working by now.

__

Angel? Are you listening? I think something is wrong, he thought mentally.

No answer from his alter ego, he waited for a few moments. 

__

This is odd, he thought, _what is going on?_

Tyr gave him an odd look ad crossed his arms. Something had spooked the avatar and he intended to find out. Suddenly the ship's bridge darkened. The lights went out and consoles died. Sephiroth seemed just as startled at the sudden power loss.

"What is going on?" Tyr growled, a slow feeling of dread was rising in his stomach. What had the little professor done now?

"Harper! What have you done?" the Nietzchean barely managed to keep his anger in check. Why couldn't the child learn to leave things alone?

Sephiroth's footsteps were heard echoing as he ran out of the bridge. Tyr followed, keeping his hand ever ready on his force lance. All the while, the avatar was muttering under his breath.

Tyr kept his eyes and ears open, listening for any sound or trace of the young human. He had grown rather fond of the boy, the whole fighting beside him when the Magog had boarded had raised the mud foot a little higher in his eyes. The little professor hadn't given in to his demons, he had fought and fought well.

The smell of singed flesh faintly wafted in the air, he fought back the urge to roll his eyes back. Harper more than likely got himself burned. The little professor was probably sulking and that was why he was ignoring any calls.

Sephiroth stopped outside a crawl way and paused, "In here. If he is injured, perhaps a friendly face would calm him."

The large Nietzchean nodded, "As you wish."

Tyr crawled into the space, his shoulders millimetres away from the sides. He was going to kill Harper if he had to crawl all the in here. His homicidal thoughts were caught short as he heard a painfully pitiful cry. Unfortunately, he knew the small cry. Heard it too many times.

Harper was in trouble.

****************

Ok, I think I know where I'm going with this! (Grabs a map and jumps up and down) I hope you enjoy. Also, parisindy…I'll try to be nice! Lol ;p 


	9. 9

cid: (looks up to the reviews) I'm glad you are all enjoying this. Hey! Having a map really does help! I thought people would get sick of it, a whole load of rambles by some mad scot chick. I'll try to update more often! Really, I have a third chapter of 'I am death' on the go bt I think it stands ok as a two piece.

****************

"What have you done now?" Tyr muttered under his breath.

Crawling around in the small access tube was never his idea of a fun time. It was more of the little professor's vision of a good day.

Sephiroth followed close behind him, muttering about how dusty the crawl way was. He kept catching his hair in his hands as he crawled.

__

Maybe I should get my hair cut. I mean, think of the split ends…the avatar always found it a struggle to keep his mind occupied on a single subject. The original captain, Parisindy, had always soothed his mind.

She had been one hell of a woman. Extremely funny and intelligent, she enjoyed the simple things in life. 

It had killed him to do what he had been programmed to do. What he didn't understand was as to why Angel had wanted to kill the woman. 

Like any other time he had thought about, he pushed it back into his memory banks. At the moment, he had bigger things pressing.

Like, why wasn't Angel talking to him and why did they have a sudden power loss? What on earth was the damn female up to?

He had to react quickly to stop himself from crashing into Tyr, perhaps he should of went first? He did know where he was going after all. He knew the ins and outs of the vessel, spending over three hundred years in the same place meant you found the interesting places quickly.

"Mr Harper?" Sephiroth called out.

No answer. Not from Harper or from the Angel. Normally, he didn't feel fear like the organics that had served on Angel. He had been programmed to rise above it.

He was alone for one of the first time in his existence. Angel had never been so quiet for so long. What had Harper done? Shouldn't he of said something if he was taking the ship off line?

__

Focus, you have to find Harper, there will be a simple explanation to this, his mind kept turning over the various possible answer.

"We're almost at the access port where Harper was last working at," Sephiroth chimed up, "We shouldn't be long in finding him."

Tyr nodded, wishing he had never encountered the Andromeda and the dreadful bore that was Dylan Hunt. Ever since he had joined forces with the human, he had done nothing selfish. Everything he had done was to benefit others.

It sickened him. He was far more superior to those he was forced to work with. However, in saying that, his inferiors had on more than one occasion proved to be far more intelligent than credited. Especially the little professor.

His excellent hearing heard what sounded like a cry of pain. Very faint but near by. Sephiroth's words haunted his mind, '_if he is injured, perhaps a friendly face would calm him_'.

How could the boy be injured? There was no one left on this vessel. Sephiroth had been with him all the time while Harper had went to fix the various problems the ship had.

A few moments later they arrived at the small area. Tyr assumed at first he was still hooked in to the ship but the smell of singed flesh was stronger in here. Tyr could see the tiny little electrical pulses racing through the cord plugged into his neck.

The large Nietzchean carefully and gracefully crawled out of the crawl way, leaving enough room for the avatar to get in. Harper moaned softly as the pulses kept charging into his small form.

Tyr frowned, "I should of known better to leave you by yourself."

He was about to touch the engineer's data port to remove the wire when Sephiroth took hold of his wrist tightly, somehow avoiding the bone spurs.

"I wouldn't do that. You wouldn't like your dreadlocks becoming fuzzy ropes now would we?"

Sephiroth carefully moved to where Harper was sitting, letting go of Tyr. He leant forward, trying to get a closer look at the data port and the wire that was connected to it. What exactly were they up to? What was this?

"What is this?"

"What?" Tyr lied.

"This," Sephiroth pointed to the silver implant disc.

For that, Tyr had no answer but his long term survival depended on Harper, "That is not of any importance. We must get Harper to the Andromeda medical bay." 

The avatar took hold of the small thin wire, ignoring the pain signals that were shooting up through his hands. Parisindy had this thing about him not touching any live wires. It didn't harm him, it annoyed the hell out of him but no actual harm ever came. Organics were really quite paranoid when it came to danger.

Harper whimpered as Sephiroth pulled the connecting end out of his neck. Mentally, Harper screamed at his own body. Why wasn't it doing what he said? Oh, yeah, that was right.

He couldn't feel anything or see anything. It was like he was blind but all he knew was that Angel was in charge. She had jumped ship, she was going to use him for her schemes. What ever they may be.

She had control over his body and for once, he was kinda glad that he was so small and weak. It meant that Tyr and the others could easily subdue him if the Angel got outta line.

Tyr watched as Sephiroth very slowly pulled the cord out. He would of just pulled the offending wire right out.

"Just pull it out!" Tyr growled, "Can't you see how much pain you are causing him?"

__

If I just yanked it out, I could do more harm than good, usually he would of used the Angel's internal systems to check the human's vital signs but she was off line.

"What happened?" Tyr asked again.

"Well, we've been having some pretty bad power surges. It started when we passed by a huge electric nebula," Sephiroth truthfully admitted, "Perhaps he got caught in one?"

Had Tyr of been of the inferior human persuasion he would of placed a hand on his forehead. Things had been going good for a while. The ship hadn't encountered any threats to his survival and had had a very lucky streak.

Though he had been wondering as to when the lucky run would end. He didn't expect it to end like this.

"Let's just get him back to the ship," Tyr said.

*******************

__

That was like extracting teeth. Damn writer block. 


	10. at long last! she updates! 10

Heeeeeeey! How we all doing out here? Groovy? Sorry for the long wait. Final fantasy, plus! I've been watching the beginning of series two of the excellent show! Sky one is showing it right now but I'm not sure what series it is. Three? Four? Trance is gold and she looks really good. Harper….drool. So fine.

Hey, who was my 41 reviewer? Come back…I haven't seen it. fan fiction was having problems when u reviewed so please, I hope it was good things. Hope u enjoy this chapter and I'm still experimenting with Sephiroth's character. I think I have him the way I like.

Sephiroth sat patiently, gently holding the semi conscious Harper in his arms. The action filled him with memories of his captain…lying dead in them after he had slaughtered the rest of the crew.

Tyr sat in the pilot's seat, like a loyal Than the Commonwealth found particularly good at slipstream piloting. The muscles out of Victoria by Barbarosa carefully guiding the Maru into the loading bay of the Andromeda.

It was peaceful if a little frightening for the avatar, he had never once left the safe confines of the Angel in all the three hundred or so years being held like a prisoner. He had dreamed about it, plotted for years for his freedom but never once did he actually try to take it, had he grown used to the paranoid and jealous Angel?

He felt odd, the Eureka Maru wasn't anything like standard commonwealth vessels. It looked like it had been put together with sticky back plastic and sweat. It felt really homey, not clinical like the dying Angel. 

He remembered his fondness of the Andromeda…she had made him laugh so very often with her dry sense of humour. Angel would sit and watch for hours as the two avatars would sit and talk for hours on end about nothing and everything. He should of seen the warning signs. Seen the paranoia spread within her but he had been too busy wrapped up in pleasing the captain.

So was this all his fault? Should he of paid more attention? 

All answers lead to a simple yes. He was the link between the crew and ship, instead, he had ended up like dear old Pax. Falling for a captain. 

All the while, the male avatar had kept his gentle fingers on the young mud foot's pulse. He didn't like how erratic it was, nor did he like the now creeping fever that was starting. Was another life about to be destroyed?

It wasn't his fault, he had and always would follow orders. It was what he had been programmed to do. Never had to make his own choices. Now he had the ability, why wasn't he going to grab it with both hands? What was he so scared of?

"You are awfully quiet," Tyr's voice had a musical quality to it, every word sounded like he was about to burst into song, "Is the little professor still breathing?"

"…Yes but…" Sephiroth gazed down into the engineer's face, "He's starting to go into shock I think."

Tyr avoided looking at him, "You think sir?"

"I'm not a doctor," Sephiroth held Harper a little tighter when he felt him shiver. He didn't like this. Angel was quiet, like she wasn't even with him.

He wasn't looking forward to speaking with Dylan Hunt, Angel wasn't there to inform of the answers. The guy was a complete bore and had a rod the size of a commonwealth ship rammed up his rear.

Darker feelings began to creep up on him, reminding him of the fact that the aforementioned hero had been one of the elite team of soldiers who braved the One winged Angel when she had fallen from grace.

__

Way in the past….. 

"SAY IT!" he screamed.

The terrified woman sobbed at his feet, begging for mercy. She'd seen half of her fellow crew mates being slain by one of the most trusted people on the ship. Her captain trying her best to regain some from of control back from the bridge. It wasn't working that well.

"…I…please, don't hurt me…" she whispered through tears.

Suddenly the raving psycho turned fairly normal. His face softening to what he should of looked like. Not twisted by rage or hatred. He looked like himself. The friendly, if a little naïve avatar they all loved.

"…I'm sorry…really but…" his green eyes kept focusing and un-focusing.

Angel? What are you making me do?! Why are you doing this? This is your crew…our family. This isn't right! _Sephiroth shook his head, trying to clear his mind, fighting the orders Angel was directing._

I won't let them kill us, do you know what they will do to us if they return back to the Commonwealth? They will destroy us_! Angel screamed in his mind._

The young crew woman eyed his sword carefully, gripped loosely in Sephiroth's hands. Angel had over rode his own will, replacing it with her own psychotic personality. His face had gone from being all warm and caring back to the cold spiteful look of a killer. Angel was using him to do her dirty work and he was hating it. He wasn't in control of his body.

Every drop of the ship's crew blood dripped off the sword slowly. The poor woman watched as it came ever nearer. She could see her breath in the cold engineering deck, goose bumps running down her neck and through her entire body.

"I don't…know where…she is," the woman lied, she did know where the captain was. So would he but the engineering crew had disabled the Angel's internal sensors. The ship was blind.

Angel's holographic version of herself appeared behind them, "Don't lie to us. Deactivating my sensors was not a good idea. It only pisses me off even more."

Sephiroth raised an eyebrow, "And if she does this when she's only slightly pissed…"

"Kill her," Angel crossed her arms, a slow evil smile spreading over her pale features, "Extremely slowly."

The screen version of Angel watched intently, she only changed screens as blood splattered the corridor. All she had to do now was to find the elusive captain.

Bridge

Captain Parisindy swore for the hundredth time. Things were not going well. The ship was trying to take over herself, if it wasn't for the fact she was trying to kill them all it would have been amusing. Something to laugh about over a few beers.

"How about now?" she pushed at some buttons, hoping for any chance of a reaction from the computer.

"No ma'am," an ensign reported.

Parasindy slammed her fists angrily on the console, "God sake! Does anything not require the bitch Angel?"

"Well," the ensign offered, "…no."

Really should tell the commonwealth that it isn't such a good idea to have a female ship with a female captain_, the captain growled in frustration at the lack of process she was making. Time was running short and the Angel would break down the fire wall surrounding the sensor control soon._

"I see the screw up fairy has visited us again," Parasindy turned to her communication officer, offering her a grim smile "Can we send out a distress call?"

A few moments passed before she got the answer she wanted, "Yes ma'am! Try it now."

Parasindy managed a small smile as the console kicked into life, "This is Captain Parasindy of the One Winged Angel. This is an emergency."

"You're a fool captain," Angel's voice filtered through the various speakers on the bridge, "You just gave us your location."

The Angel's cold voice informed them of a horrid fact, "Depressurisation of the main bridge section in 30 seconds…"

An hour later

Sephiroth desperately fought the all powerful control in his mind. Parasindy knelt in front of him, a blank of nothingness on her face.

"Sin…si…" he struggled with the words in his mind. Angel was putting words into his mouth, he didn't want to say these things. Didn't want to do half the things he had…

He cared about his captain, about the crew. Angel had told him that his friends were plotting against them. Trying to deceive them.

Angel told him that the Commonwealth was coming to stop them. He knew the punishment for trying to kill a captain and crew… complete memory erasure. Death for a ship. Death for an avatar as well.

"S…sing baa baa…" the words tasted bitter. 

His soul, his being was crying from the inside. Every time he fought, Angel pushed harder. No matter how he tried to bypass her control she always came up trumps.

"Sing Baa baa black sheep or I will kill you," Angel said through him, he could hear her laughing from within. See the numbness in the captain he had forced to kneel in front of him.

Parasindy locked eyes with him, it was all she needed to do. The look told him more than words could. A look of pure defiance and hatred.

"You can go to hell, you bitch," the captain closed her eyes as she felt the cold edge of the sword press against her neck.

"I'll see you go first." 

Sephiroth could do but watch in the cold empty space of his form that he had been forced to as Angel raised the antique sword high above his head, readying it for the fatal swing. Parasindy never broke the eye contact.

He couldn't even look away as her voice filled his mind, "Sephiroth…"

~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Sephiroth?"

The avatar blinked, staring into dark eyes.

"Are you all right sir?" Tyr asked with amusement.

"I'll be alright. The power surge must have affected some of my systems," he lied.

The large Nietzschean stood back, allowing the man some breathing space. Fighting back the insticnt to take Harper from him. As much as he hated admitting it, he actually found himself rather…amused at the small blonde. His passion for life and his own self interest was of a Nietzschean quality.

How he had fought through various battles and the nightmare of the Magog invasion of the ship. 

"Harper will be fine," Tyr decided.

"How do you know that?"

"Occurrences like this are not all that uncommon," Tyr let a heavy sigh escape his form.

He had been through more near death experiences in his life than he would normally being a mercenary. Magog, phase shifting bounty hunters, psychotic love struck ships to name but a few. All to bring back the dead fossil that was the Commonwealth.

"Why do I have the strange urge to believe that?" Sephiroth uttered as he carefully and elegantly stood with Harper.

Both men span round when they heard someone shout their names.

"Tyr! What the hell happened?"

The small and curvy form of Trance slinked by Dylan, "Harper?"

Instinctively, Sephiroth stepped back, his calves encountering resistence behind him. His green eyes widened in horror.

"…I…" words seemed to fail him as he stood in the same fear.

Trance smiled, her attempt to sooth him, "It's ok. I won't hurt you."

"It's not you he's afraid of," Tyr crossed his muscular forearms as he leant against a bulkhead.

Trance frowned, if it wasn't her then who? Who was there on board who could scare people like that? Oh…right.

"Oh…he won't hurt you either. He's a wayist," Trance edged a little nearer, trying to get a look at Harper. The fact that he was being held by a complete stranger wasn't a good thing. Even if she knew he was a good guy.

Sephiroth flashed his green eyes at her for as long as he dared. A Magog. A stinking, filthy bastard Magog. On the Andromeda?!

"Wayist?" the avatar sneered, "It's a Magog. You know what they do?"

A tired sigh came from Tyr's direction, "First hand. The child you carry in your arms has Magog larvae within him because of the Magog. You would be wise in following his way and pushing any hatred of their species to the side if you wish to remain on this vessel."

All gathered were shocked into silence by the sudden statement from Tyr. Dylan frowned, Tyr couldn't be softening in his old age could he? Learning to tolerate other 'inferior' species could he? The tolerance seemed to be short lived when the muscle bound warrior gave Rev a dark look as he left the confines of the Maru.

"Alright," Dylan cleared his mind and returned back to the issue at hand. Harper was more important that Tyr's racist feelings, "Let's get Harper to the medical bay asap."

Trance motioned for Sephiroth to follow her, transfixed at how tall he was. Taller and broader across the shoulder than the last male avatar she had met, she could feel his eyes on her. A smile crept onto her lips, she knew exactly what he was thinking. What as she?

"Sephiroth," Dylan walked with them as they left the Maru, "What happened?"

"A power surge. Mr Harper must have been caught in one. Angel is off line through. I fear the worst for her. It's so…odd not hearing her," Sephiroth told Dylan simply what he knew. No amendments, no lies.

He sensed the reluctance coming from Dylan as he placed a sympathetic hand on his shoulder, "We'll…do what we can."

Dylan raised his head slightly to the ceiling, "Andromeda, get the medical bay prepped."

"……Dylan?" Harper's whisper was muffled by Sephiroth's chest, "…did it work…?"

Trance's purple hand stroked his hair, soothing him, "Did what work, Harper?"

No one noticed Harper smiling from the safety of Sephiroth's arms and if everything went according to her hastily made plan. No one would until it was to late.

She just had to wait until Harper's small form recovered.

********


	11. 11

Hey kids! How ya doin? As always, I don't own….damn.

Harper looks so hot in series two! He's well buff!

*************

****

Bridge of the andromeda…past

As much as Dylan trusted Andromeda's decision on things, he just couldn't shake the feeling of dread that was creeping up on him as he watched Sephiroth pace the length of his office like a caged cat.

He watched the muscular shoulders fall up and down in rhythm, the being in front of him was either angry or extremely nervous. 

He hadn't forgotten the last time he went up against this particular Commonwealth officer. He'd lost half of his assault unit and had watched as the silver haired creation had smiled as he did it.

However…the being pacing a hole in his office was not the same nut who had gone on the killing spree. This one honestly seemed concerned about the current situation. Though it lead Dylan to believe that the man was just killing time so he could plan something.

Harper, according to the purple wonder that was Trance, was going to be ok but more than a little groggy for a few days. The young man was resting in the medical bay with Rev Bem praying to the ever present Devine for his health. 

"Mr Sephiroth, please," Dylan offered him a seat with a swift fluid motion of his hand. The silver haired avatar looked at it as though it was a baby Magog ready to devour a sack of kittens.

"I'm very politely ordering you. I'm not asking," Dylan offered him a smile that could of frozen water.

Rommie stood in the corner, watching every move the nervous being made. She had been startled herself when the Angel suddenly went dead but something wasn't right. There had been a power surge, she had been through a bad space storm. On that she wasn't lying to the crew but something wasn't sitting right.

Surely Harper, with all his self proclaimed mechanical and engineering skills would of realised a power surge? Even if he was hacked into her system? He would of seen it coming a mile off.

"Rommie?" Dylan looked at her, his somewhat handsome face frowning in concern.

"I'm fine Dylan," Rommie answered in her almost in sync voice.

Sephiroth eyed her warily, "Funny, I remembered you saying that after we rescued you when you emerged from slipstream…"

Rommie raised her eyebrows and interrupted, "I am. Really. I was just wondering why Harper didn't see the energy surge and why I didn't detect it myself."

That lighted a similar file in Sephiroth's mind, why hadn't he seen it coming? He frowned in confusion.

"……That also makes me wonder the same thing," Sephiroth sat on the edge of the chair, ready to leap up at a moments notice, "Why didn't I go offline?"

Dylan leaned forward and rested his forearms on the table, "Avatars usually have a small back up generators right?"

Sephiroth shrugged, "I'm not an engineer. I can barely change a light bulb without having to resort to reading the instructions first."

Rommie nodded in the corner, "Most do."

"Most engineers?" the avatar rubbed the back of his neck, working out an imaginary kink that had decided to work it's way.

"Avatars," Rommie gently corrected.

Dylan sighed, _Why am I getting this horrible feeling in the back of my head? Is Sephiroth really this naïve after 3 hundred years of drifting?_

"Sephiroth," Dylan straightened, "What do you remember about the power loss?"

"I was sitting on the bridge trying to fix something. Mr Tyr was standing behind me, telling me how the Commonwealth had fallen. Harper and Angel were fixing something near the engineering deck. It went quiet about a few hours later," Sephiroth gave him a shrug with one shoulder, "I'm not lying, that's all what happened."

~~~~~~~~

Trance watched as her friend slept somewhat peacefully on the huge medical bed. Everything on the ship seemed to drown his small frame no matter how hard he tried.

She had patched him up and had given him a mild sedative to help him rest. The drug seemed to be working and he would only toss and turn occasionally. Soft moans emerged from his lips.

His data port had actually fared better than she expected. Harper had merely caught the end waves of the surge rather than the first ones. She hadn't been to thrilled about how Sephiroth had removed the thin wire from him. 

Why hadn't she seen this coming? You didn't have to see possible futures or have a gift to see that when Andromeda bumped into old friends, that things generally went bad.

Had she been lulled into a false sense of security by the sudden peaceful and what everyone claimed, lucky streak?

She heard Rev mutter softly prayers of the Devine for Harper and smiled. No matter how dire the situation was, you could always depend on Rev appealing to the Devine's graces.

__

Why did Harper ask 'Did it work' for? Did what work? What did he do over there? What did Dylan ask him to do? Trance shrugged the questions off. She'd find out the answers soon enough she figured.

She turned round in time to see Beka creep into the medical bay, her blue eyes instantly turning to where her 'adopted brother' lay. The pilot flashed Trance a smile before walking over to Harper.

"Leave you alone for two seconds," Beka gently ruffled the sleeping engineer's blonde hair, "He's going to be okay right?"

Trance smiled, "Of course Beka. He was just electrocuted."

The pilot with the ever changing hair gave the purple one a funny look, "Just electrocuted? Last time he was fried, we had the whole commonwealth library in his head. Every time I let him out of my sights, something bad happens to him."

"Well, it's not your fault. Trouble just follows us," the purple alien shrugged, "Anyway, I'm more interested in Sephiroth. Who exactly is he?"

As much as Beka hated admitting it, she loved gossip as much as the next woman. She had to hid the fishmonger wife part of her whenever she spoke to Tyr, who it seemed, loved to gossip as well given half a chance.

The entire crew on the ship loved to gossip and even the holier than thou Dylan had been known to lower himself. She had even caught the captain 'discussing important briefings' with the warship.

"…Dylan hasn't told me. Though, I get the feeling that they have history," Beka leaned her lean frame against the bed and crossed her arms. 

This had intrigued Rev, who joined the conversation. No one, it seemed was immune from the bug that was gossip on the warship.

"Perhaps but _I feel _that the Devine will tell us the answers when we need them, not when we want them," Rev looked up from his bedside place, his eyes taking in the two women in front of him.

Beka smiled, "I was never one for waiting. I'm gonna go see what Dylan is saying."

On that, the Maru's captain left the sickbay.

"May the Devine help us…" Rev muttered smiling, "She has such passion."

Trance bit her bottom lip, frowning. Something bothered her, something not quite right.

"You know Rev," the young alien said, "You may be right about those answers."

*****************

****

Harper's mind…

The young mud foot slowly opened his blue eyes. Green files zipped by his head, interlaced with reality…or what he believed to be it.

He was lying flat on his back and staring at the bridge of the Andromeda, though the green files were still floating before his eyes.

Carefully and slowly he stood up, stumbling back. This was the Andromeda but things were different. It was deserted and he was still in his newly acquired Commonwealth uniform.

Instinctively, he reached for his data port, remembering the sudden and unprovoked attack by the Angel. It burnt his pale finger tips. He swore as he sucked on them to ease the pain.

"Ouch…jeez. That freakin' hurt," he managed to mutter.

"Rommie?" he held his breath, waiting for the ever sexy voice of the ship to filter through the speakers.

His heart beat quickened as the ship failed to answer him. This wasn't good. His next thoughts were about the others on the ship, Tyr, Beka, Dylan, Rev and Trance. If Rommie was offline, then who knows what had happened to the others while he was out.

He span round as the doors to the bridge seemed to open in slow motion, revealing the curvy form of the Angel in all her glory.

On pure instinct, the blonde dived behind the console usually occupied by Tyr, trying to make himself smaller and less visible to the holographic warship apparition.

__

What the hell is happening here?! How is she here?! I'm back on the Andromeda…not the…or am I? That might explain why Rommie isn't answering…Harper groaned inwardly, cursing the fact that he woke up this morning.

"Oh no Mister Harper," Angel's voice cut through the silence and made his skin crawl at the same time, "Rommie isn't here. It's only me."

Harper's eyes darted about the empty bridge, looking for a place to run to. A place to hid from Angel, he spotted an open access port and contemplated the short fast sprint over to it. Could the hologram be faster than she looked?

The blonde listened to his heart beat as it continued to thunder in his chest. Surely the witch must of heard it?

"Come on out Seamus. I'm not going to hurt you…not if you do a little job for me," Angel changed her voice to one with a seductive undertone.

The blonde pressed his back against the console he was hiding behind. He shook his head, trying to clear the rising fear out of his mind.

"Uh…no! I mean, hello! You tried to kill me! What makes you think that I would do anything for you?!" Harper edged a little closer to the open port, hoping the Angel would be looking elsewhere for him.

He couldn't see the smile but his ears picked up on it almost instantly.

"Because I can give you so much pain if you don't."

__

I really didn't….arrrrrghh! Harper twisted in pain as the Angel somehow managed to give him electric shocks, futilely he tried biting back the pain but nothing it seemed, would hold his cries back.

**************

Medical bay, still in the past

Trance leapt back in surprise, watching as the blonde started having convulsions. The currents started from the small silver data port and all the way through his form.

His screams were strangled, as though he was fighting not to scream. Before the young alien had a chance to respond to help him, the screams and the convulsions stopped.

So did his heart.

Trance leapt forward, her heart racing.

"Oh no you don't Harper!" she fumbled with the necessary life saving equipment.

It was a blink-and-you-miss-it moment as his heart started again, much to her relief. She let out a jagged sigh.

"Beka would kill you if you did that while she was here," Trance whispered softly.

Harper's hand shot to her throat, catching her off guard. The purple alien stood in shock as the engineer sat up sharply and pretty much threw her across the room.

Trance clattered into the medical cabinets, covering her head from the falling glasses and bottles that was held in them. She was reeling in shock as the small blonde engineer shakily stood up, an odd look on his face.

"Harper?" Trance whispered, "What are you doing?"

A slow smile spread over the handsome face, "Getting revenge."

******************

Duh duh duh…. 


	12. now it starts with the plot

Once again, thanks to all who review! I love my fans! 

*******

Rommie raised her eyebrows, shocked at the scene she was watching from her holographic screen. Harper had quite happily thrown Trance away like a rag doll into the medical cabinet.

One minute the human male was having convulsions and his heart stopping to chucking Trance.

Her Harper wouldn't of been able to do that. He was strong but not enough to throw a person to the other side of a room. Heck, not even a few feet away from him but the image she just witnessed… If he had been Tyr or Dylan he could of but he was Harper! Harper for crying out loud!

Small, cute, helpless…the one who the crew would defend to the bitter end.

She didn't wait to be asked by the still stunned Trance to activate security. She ordered her other robots to the medical facility, called Tyr and then Dylan. This all happened within seconds.

She could only watch as Harper picked up a hypo and filled it with a chemical she couldn't see. He moved to one of her screens and stared intently at it for a long second. His hands shook as he reached out to touch it. 

She appeared in her holographic form behind Harper hoping to distract him long enough for Tyr and Dylan to get here.

"Harper! What are you doing?!" she crossed her arms in a disproving manner, hoping to scold him into behaving.

The small blonde stopped and looked directly into her eyes with aid of the his reflection. His were red rimmed and he looked shattered. His jaw twitched as he stood silently in front of her. Any colour he usually had was gone from his cheeks.

Slowly, a smile flickered on his lips. Not his one of cockiness or his cute I-know-nothing-will-ever-happen-between-us-but-I-can-still-dream-can't-I smiles. 

This was one she had never seen before. One she really didn't like on him.

"I don't really feel like telling. I told the purple…girl what I was after," Harper said flatly, like he was reading from a prewritten script.

"You said revenge," Andromeda played the scene back in her mind, "For what?"

In the same flat voice the blonde spoke up again, "Because I fee like it. Because I can. Because I think after all this time I deserve it. Nothing will stop me from having what I want."

Expertly his fingers danced over keys, encrypting any files he could. He worked the few seconds silently in order to gain access to the Andromeda's self diagnostics procedure, from there, he told her to perform an A.I check as well.

"Har…" Rommie opened her mouth hoping to finish the word before she disappeared.

That would give him some time to get to the engineering deck and thoroughly take control of her younger 'cousin'. 

He walked right through the hologram, not looking back to see the look of confusion spread across the woman's face as she disappeared back into the virtual space she came from.. He watched as Tyr rushed by him, not even taking the time to even register him.

Tyr stopped millimetres outside of the door as it refused to open for him and turned, "What are you doing up boy?"

"…one of…Rommie's bot's went nuts. Threw Trance across the room. I was going after it," the blonde offered him a weak smile.

The thought made Tyr's lip curl up to one side in humour, "You?"

The smile Harper gave him was dull and lifeless. As though the action was odd for him and he wasn't used to it.

"Well, I've managed to put her in a self diagnostic routine so she won't bother us," Harper stared blankly at a spot on the wall.

"What is wrong with you boy?" Tyr frowned, the man in front of him didn't look anything like he usually did. Red eyes, deathly complexion, emotionless voice.

The answer was slow in coming, "I was…just electrocuted. See how you feel after you get a few thousand jolts through you."

The Nietzschean raised an eyebrow in way of response. he had been electrocuted at one point because of his force lance and had been accused of killing the Castelian president. Amusement flashed on his face as Harper swayed slightly.

"And you are going to tackle the robot yourself?" Tyr laughed out loud at the thought, "Go back to bed child."

He raised his hand, as though he was going to hit the smaller man and growled menacingly. He frowned when Harper didn't flinch or even move an inch.

Harper narrowed his blue eyes, "Is that supposed to be scary?"

Tyr moved towards him, hoping to make him move some small inch back. When he threatened the human, it usually sent him running backwards and falling flat on the floor.

The engineer moved almost to quickly for Tyr to follow and the Nietzchean found himself flat on the floor himself with Harper pinning him to the ground with all his weight.

This wasn't much of a problem for the Kodiak member, he'd benched pressed heavier sugar bags than the blonde. More to the fact he was annoyed at how the blonde had flattened him.

Harper grabbed one of Tyr's muscular arms, somehow managing to keep the larger and now annoyed man down. The engineer had nearly all his weight on the Nietzchean's lower body.

"Get off of me boy," Tyr growled, his top lip curled in anger.

"No because if I do, you'll more than likely hurt me," Harper pulled out the hypo he acquired from the medical bay.

"All I know for certain boy," Tyr bit out every word with anger, "Is that if you do not get off me, you will be right in your prediction."

Harper stuck the hypo into Tyr's upper arm, "Oh…"

The blonde sounded disappointed at the effect the chemical was having, it was a sedative. Tyr's eyes softened as the sedative worked it's way through his strong system and Harper poised for a second administration of the drug, waiting to see if the first had done it's job.

__

Oh…I was so hoping for a much more interesting reaction, Angel pouted as Tyr quickly fell unconscious, _Oh well._

Somewhere on the Andromeda

"Dylan?" Rommie stopped mid run, she had just became suddenly quiet.

One minute she was talking or rather trying to talk to Harper in the medical bay and now she wasn't. She had placed into a self diagnostic routine for all her systems, including all her avatars by Harper.

"Rommie?" Dylan turned round checking to see what the matter was.

Rommie stood perfectly still, her mouth slightly open as if she was interrupted in the middle of saying something. Her dark eyes stared blankly at him and Rommie, the most powerful and probably intelligent warship in the universe…looked like the universe's stupidest bimbo who had forgotten that she could talk.

Sephiroth stopped a few metres ahead and turned when he heard Dylan's voice. It seemed that Rommie was now an expensive fly catcher for the Commonwealth.

Dylan's first thought was that Sephiroth had done something to her. Implanted some sort of virus into her mainframe or something. Was the silver haired avatar planning on taking over his ship?

Not while Captain Dylan Hunt was alive and kicking. He hadn't survived Magog attacks, 're-education facilities', bounty hunters, phase shifting aliens and all the others just to be taken down by some silver haired robot!

"If you have anything to do with this Mister Sephiroth, I swear to the Devine that I will melt you down into spare parts quicker than you can say Sparky cola," Dylan placed his hand on his ever trusty force lance and his trigger finger very lightly over the fire button.

"Sparky cola?" Sephiroth frowned, "What the hell is that?"

Dylan growled in anger, not impressed with the response he'd been given. Everything had been going along swimmingly…well, not exactly swimming but they were having a good run of luck. He had managed to get at least a few more prospective members for the Commonwealth Charter.

His response was cut short when Beka ran up to him, her pale face red after the run.

"…Dylan…" she panted, ,"The doors won't open and Andromeda isn't responding."

The captain nodded his head in the direction of his avatar, "I know."

Beka took a deep breath, "What's the plan?"

Sephiroth clicked his fingers in front of Rommie, trying to get some form of an annoyed tut from her. His green eyes searched her face for some form of small sign.

"Let's get to the medical bay and check what's going there. My first priority is Trance and Harper," Dylan gave Sephiroth a foul look.

__

What have I done? This is all his fault. If he hadn't of waltzed on over to the Angel and allowed his crew to start pushing buttons…wait a mintute…what crew? I haven't seen any other than what was presented.

The purple girl, the Magog, Tyr and the midget of an engineer. Don't tell that the Commonwealth has been cutting back on crew sizes as well. 

Sephiroth scratched the back of his head thoughtfully, "Captain…where is the rest of your crew? Surely Rommie would of called them to the medical bay and not you."

Beka raised both her eyebrows and turned expectantly to her captain. Her blue eyes hiding the amusement that was barely being concealed.

Dylan said nothing as he ran past them. Sometimes avatars were to smart for their own good.

Beka and Sephiroth followed after him after a second or two of eyeing each other warily. The trio almost ran in step, Angel's avatar being the slower of the three.

Beka gave him a quick glance, "Keeping up okay?"

Annoyance flashed in green eyes, "I think my battery is almost dead." 

Dylan shook his head and sighed, "Great. Beka, stay with him. I'll go on ahead and check the medical bay."

The captain didn't even try to hide the distrust in his voice as he ordered his first officer to play babysitter. Beka watched in a growing anger as he left. Dylan seemed to bump her with all the boring assignments. What really got her goat was that it was the middle of an emergency and she was babysitting Rommie's inbred cousin with a dying battery.

"I'll just stay here then…" she called after him.

Sephiroth frowned, his reserve power was low. Not once did he actually think about charging it, he didn't even think that he would even have to. Getting off the Angel had always been hypothetical so, no real plan was formed.

"Miss Beka……I believe that I may have to….." Sephiroth's head felt three times as heavy as it should. Every word was beginning to get increasingly difficult to say.

"……leave…" Sephiroth's soft voice trailed off slowly as his power reserves fell to empty. His head slumped forward and his shoulders sagged.

Beka snorted her response, "Huh, stuck babysitting two statues."

********************

Harper's mind

No matter how hard he ran or how fast, Angel always seemed to be right behind him.

His legs threatened to give out from underneath him, his knees began to turn to jelly and the feeling was more than happy to spread to his calves and ankles.

Slowly, he eased up on his mad sprint. His blue eyes darting around the strangely familiar yet different surroundings.

"Okay…first order of business is to find Beka and the others. Tell them what the heck is happening here," Harper wiped a sweaty hand across his face, "Aww man, who am I kidding?!"

"I don't even know where I am!" he moaned, half hoping to hear Tyr's growl and extremely bad imitation of him.

"Harper! Oh Harper! Where are you?" Angel's once sexy voice had been raised to a horrid screech making the said engineer wince every time he heard her.

"Um…" he muttered, anything to try and drown out the screeching voice looking for him.

"Harper," he said in his best Dylan voice, "don't be a freaking idiot. Get your ass down to the engineering deck. Get the Andromeda back on line!"

"Do as he says child," he lowered his voice a few octaves to get Tyr.

__

Engineering right! I mean, if I disable Rommie's holo projectors. Angel should disappear and then I could start working on restoring Andromeda and find out where the guys are!

He smiled proudly at his hastily made plan, "Thanks guys."

Almost by chance he walked by an active security panel on the wall and he was kinda shocked to see the image. Beka stood with his back to him, beside a motionless Rommie and Sephiroth, if he concentrated hard enough he could of heard what the former red head was muttering about.

Something shiny caught the corner of the screen, something metallic in appearance. What was he watching? A pre recording of what happened to the crew? Did something bad happen to Beka?!

All he could do was scream at the screen as the thing moved towards an unsuspecting Beka.

__


	13. 13

Chapter 13! Whoo hoo! Enjoy! (hands out chocolate harpers to all the female population and chocolate trances to the guys.)

Harper's mind

"Beka!" Harper screamed, not caring if the ever nearing Angel could hear him. Someone or something was going to hurt his Beka. He couldn't even help her.

It happened in the past. You couldn't change the past…he knew from experience.

He was still trying to say sorry to Tyr for what he did at the battle of Witch head. Instead of amending and saying the words, he had been pushing…no not pushing him, more like goading Tyr into trying to hurt him, trying to make him feel better.

"Beka, you gotta run! Now! It's gonna get you!"

It tore him from the inside out, every step the thing took it meant less time for Beka. Why wasn't Rommie or Sephiroth doing anything?! Surely Rommie could see the thing walking up to Beka?

Once again he screamed at the blonde captain, a small part of him hoping that she would hear his desperate screams for her to turn round but he knew she couldn't.

It seemed that his screams would only be answered by an angel. One hell bent on killing him.

His heart quickened as Beka turned round to greet the stranger or so he thought. He frowned as Beka smiled at the person…it couldn't of been Rommie. She was standing right in front of him…

Nah…that couldn't be it. The ship he was in was empty and it wasn't the Angel. Everything was so much darker over there and the Andromeda was always nice and neat and light.

Beka seemed to give the person walking to her a friendly but concerned smile, did she know this person? Then why was Harper getting a bad feeling?

"Hey kiddo, how you feeling?" Beka's voice came through the tiny little screen.

Kiddo…that was her name for him sometimes.

"Tired…feels like I'm fighting with myself just to stay awake," he heard his voice reply.

His voice?! His freaking voice?! When bad luck struck Harper, it always struck more than once.

Harper grabbed his head in frustration and confusion. How or why the hell was he hearing his voice? Did…did he do something bad to…no. No, he would never in a million years hurt Beka.

Not even the time when she threw up on his favourite Hawaiian shirt after he had challenged her to an ice cream eating contest or when she brought Rev Brem onboard the Maru for the first time. 

"HARPER! You can't run forever you know!" Angel's voice called nearer.

The blonde muttered under his breath, "I know this ship like the back of my freaking hand so I can hide…"

The blonde span round, his morbid fascination with the screen forgotten. His hands reached for his guass weapon and they came away empty. Fingers trembling as he looked at them.

"Harper…there you are," Angel appeared right in front of him, "You are such a tricky man to actually locate."

The blonde backed into a bulkhead, still hoping somewhere in his heart that Tyr or Dylan would bound round the corner to the rescue. That this was all a nasty little dream that an infection in his brain had concocted.

****

Andromeda, still in the past….

Beka watched as Harper stood beside her, swaying slightly. Her friend didn't look his usual perky self but at least he was standing. Standing meant he was alright.

"What happened to Sephiroth?" the blonde male asked as he looked at the avatar, "He isn't damaged is he?"

"Rommie isn't working and your worried about Sephiroth?" Beka looked at him oddly, unable to believe that the man in front of her was more concerned for a male avatar rather than the female creation he had made.

"…sorry. Must still have a little bit of the angel in my head," he offered her a weak smile.

Beka smiled back softly, she'd seen him at his worst before. This wasn't anything she felt she had to be to concerned about, not yet anyway. 

Harper had never really had an easy ride even on the Andromeda. Always getting picked on by bigger and stronger aliens than him or being forced to do the work of an entire engineering crew.

"That gonna be a problem kiddo?" Beka edged a little nearer to him and was a little surprised to see him back by a millimetre. If she hadn't knew him as well as she did, she wouldn't of even noticed.

__

Huh? What's up with him? Beka turned and walked to the two stationary avatars and leaned against Sephiroth.

"Tall and silver over here ran out of gas and Rommie…well, Dylan was going to check on you and then find out," the Maru's captain nodded in the direction Dylan had ran off in.

"Where's Trance?" Beka frowned.

She had left the purple wonder to look after him, knowing full well that the alien would take care of him and wouldn't leave his side until he felt better.

"…I think she's in the medical bay. Before Rommie went nuts that is," Harper made a face as he tried to remember.

Beka's blue eyes widened in surprise before narrowing. Andromeda gone nuts? She frowned again. Something fishier than a Castelian was going on. 

"You sure?" the Maru's captain crossed her arms, "I mean, nuts?"

The upper cut caught her by complete surprise as she fell flat on her backside. She tasted blood in her mouth as she landed on the cold metal grated deck.

"Like I said…my memory is kinda fuzzy," the engineer offered.

Harper shook his right hand and flexed the fingers. It seemed that the human male had a fist made of glass and the woman a jaw of steel. Angel felt the pain throb through the delicate fingers and wondered whether or not the hand was broken.

Beka scrambled to her feet, using Sephiroth and Rommie as shields. On impulse she pulled out her gun and pointed it steadily at her friend. Never in her life did she ever think that she would use it on him.

"Harper…back off," she drove a pointed look into his tired eyes.

He didn't respond as he expertly took the gone from her and pointed at her, "No, I think you should."

Beka tried her stern don't-mess-with-me voice on the young man, "Harper, stop being an idiot. Give me the gun."

Pale fingers gripped Beka's weapon tightly, his index finger resting gently on the trigger.

"Back off Captain Valentine," Harper hissed.

Never, in all his time working with her, had he called her Captain Valentine. He referred to her as Boss, Beka or on the really odd occasions, Rebecca. Never, in all her time working with him, had she had any reasons to fear him. He was always there for her.

"Harper, it's me. Beka," she whispered to him.

Red rimmed, cold eyes stared at her. Harper tilted his head slightly to the left, as if he was listening to someone else. His eyes darted from side to side before resting finally on the Maru's captain.

"I know exactly who you are," Harper hissed again, "So, that is why I am not going to kill you. Get to your ship and leave."

"If you know me, then you'll realise that I'm not going to leave," Beka argued, "Harper! For the love of the Devine!"

"Love of the Devine?" a short bitter laughed crept from Harper's pale lips, "I don't believe in the Devine."

Beka held out her hands in the sign of peace, not wanting to agitate the blonde further. She had to get the gun from him and get him back to the medical bay.

"Alright. I'll go back to the Maru, on one condition. You come with me," Beka bargained.

"No," a second blow caused her to fall back.

Her head cracked against the metal grated deck. She prayed that this was all a nasty dream before allowing darkness to claim her.

Harper's mind

Anger pulsed through his frame as he swung at empty air.

"YOU BITCH!" he screamed, "She didn't do anything!"

Angel's voice filled his entire being with even more hate, "You still don't get it do you?"

"Foolish child, where do you think you are?"

Harper span round, trying to locate the woman, "On…on the Andromeda."

A disembodied laugh sent chills down his spine. Why was she laughing?

"Not on the Andromeda?"

No answer, except that laugh. What was so freaking funny?

"Dear, dear, dear child. Not exactly," Angel started her mad laugh again.

He ran from her voice, hoping to see a huge exit sign in big neo letters somewhere. What the hell is going on?

__

What the hell is going on?! Harper dived into an access tunnel, hoping to hide from the ever present Angel.

He took the chance to take a small breather from running and the chance to get his thoughts in order.

He crawled further into the crawl way, looking for his regular thinking spot or a space large enough for him to sit comfortably anyhow. After what seemed like a lifetime of crawling, he found his little safe haven and pressed his back firmly against the bulkhead.

"Harper," he heard his name echo down through the crawl way, "I know what scares you. I know your fears and I will do everything I can to keep you silent and obedient until I carry out my plan."

"Yeah?! What freaking plan?! Why are you here?!" Harper cried out.

"I'm going to destroy the Andromeda, then the restored Commonwealth will die a fiery death as I launch my Nova bombs on their worlds," Angel divulged.

Harper's eyes widened, nova bombs? Nova freaking bombs?! No freaking way!

Suddenly and in the distant, he heard rhythmic drumming and faint thuds of things impacting with the hull of the ship.

"I'm not afraid of them…" he whispered, "Not afraid. My fear is like the Devine. It is like air, it is like water."

He heard a nearby screech from a Magog, ,"My fear…is like the Devine. It is like air, it is like water."

*********************

Yeah, I know. The bad old magog comes a knocking. Well, he's all alone right now. You guys still enjoying this fic?


	14. 14

Ack…sorry for the long wait. Damn muses…(looks over to cid, Vincent, dante and harper) have me writing all sorts this weather. Really annoying. I'm glad that ya'll still like this fic and I promise to update more but I usually update one of my fics anyhow….

****************

Angel dragged Beka's unconscious form slowly down the corridor, cursing in every known language ever heard by mankind. She threw in a few knew ones she'd learned over the years in as well.

It would just be her luck to find that Sephiroth had a short battery lifespan. He never ever charged the small thing, they both figured that he would never have to. The silver haired avatar never left the safe confines of the ship.

She began mentally checking Harper's mind, looking for anything that could help her in her mad schemes. It helped having the small engineer cowering in the recesses of his mind.

She hadn't even thought about using his own fears against him until now. This young man had whole lifetime of fears kicking around inside of him, including some very interesting information. The entire Commonwealth library, just waiting to be accessed by some one smart enough.

__

Ohh…very interesting. Look what I have, Angel smiled slowly, _You can build Nova bombs! At least I won't have to worry about finding them._

She felt nothing as she gazed coolly at the older blonde's cheek. An ugly looking bruise was forming. The captain could of gotten away with few injuries, why had she tried to talk to her? Why wasn't she following the set program for organics?

Run at the first hint of trouble, save one's own skin before saving others.

It seemed like Captain Valentine was very much like her former captain, one Parasindy. Attractive, quick, loyal…anger flooded her mind, bringing back memories of her former captain.

She would have the same revenge, kill Beka the same way she did her old Commonwealth captain! Controlling Sephiroth would be near impossible now but, once in a while, even she enjoyed getting her hands dirty.

"You know, I did ask you nicely to leave," Angel muttered, "but no…you had to get the stupid idea that he was still yours. Surely the fact that he looks like death warmed up didn't ring bells?"

The words she spoke, how they felt when she said them was bizarre. Not the way she imagined they would sound like or feel. 

Humans looked so much simpler to the outside observer but controlling one was like flying through slipstream. Difficult if you weren't used to it.

If she was a sane little warship, she would of found it fascinating. A chance to ponder how things worked in the universe and a chance to experience a little bit of humanity.

Harper's hand throbbed in pain as she pulled a little harder on Beka, grunting as the Maru's captain was heavier than she looked.

"I always thought blondes weighed less…all they have in their heads is air," Angel grumbled, she found that she missed being able to change her own air colour. Her current favourite colour being the nice purple shade she had chosen.

It took her a few minutes to get the Maru's captain to the ship's brig, panting as she dragged the form in. Quickly she glanced over to the still form of Tyr, raising an eyebrow as she didn't expect the drug to be that powerful.

"Men who can't shake off a simple sedative, men with glass fists and women with steel jaws," Angel muttered, "What is the universe coming to?"

She straightened, rubbing her back. How can humans deal with the constant pains? Her stomach growled in…something. She rubbed Harper's stomach, wondering as to what was wrong.

"Humans…such frail beings," she frowned, trying to figure out the feeling but ended up searching Harper's mind for the closest feeling.

__

Oh…hunger. That's right…they need to get food every few hours, Angel shrugged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dylan jogged down the corridor, thanking Tyr for all the races he'd been forced into. his reaction time was getting faster all the time. It unnerved him not to hear Rommie's footsteps in sync with his.

The ship's other avatars weren't even milling around, they stood like Rommie, motionless and lifeless. His ship felt like a tomb. Something bad was going to happen.

It felt like the ship had been infested with magogs once more and they had stopped drumming. That's when hell would unleash it's dogs, the deafening silence and then the pounding of their feet as they raced towards you.

He shook his head, clearing it of all unwanted thoughts. He still had nightmares about that day, Harper had apologized profusely for accessing Rommie's back up file but there was still a small part of Dylan who hated him.

"Tyr?" Andromeda had sent the man down to the medical bay first as he was the closest but had he received the message before she went offline?

No answer, not that he really expected one. Tyr wouldn't tell you where he went, he'd just sneak up on you and kill you if you were his enemy.

To Dylan's surprise he found that the med doors were slowly trying to be prised open. He spotted purple finger tips poking out of the small gap that had been opened.

"Trance?" Dylan called, "That you?"

Stupid question. Who else on the ship was purple? He chided himself for asking the obvious.

"Dylan!" the purple one exclaimed, "Are you okay? What's going on?

__

Your guess is probably better than mine right now Trance, Dylan thought mentally.

"I don't know but I thought you might," he replied, "How's Harper?"

Trance fell silent as Dylan stood in front of the door and attempted to prise the door open. She could see the strain on his face as he grunted in effort. She looked away for a long second, looking for an answer.

"I…something is very wrong with Harper Dylan," she finally admitted, "I think something bad happened over on the other ship."

Dylan stopped pulling against the doors and looked at Trance's clear eye, "What do you mean something bad happened?"

A sick thud was heard as Trance watched in horror as Dylan fell to the side, "Means an angel has fallen from grace."

Trance watched as Harper flashed by her, she pushed against the door, trying to open the stubborn things.

"Stop!" she cried out, "Harper! He's your friend!"

"Friend?!" Harper laughed, "Please, don't make me laugh."

Trance turned round and searched franticly in the med bay for something she could use as leverage and prise the door open with. Nothing seemed strong enough to do the task.

"Harper, please. Think about what your doing," she called, could she reason with this person?

Dylan could hear Trance's perfectly reasonable voice slowly clear in his head, the light friendliness in it replaced with concern and worry. His head spinning round like a carousel at a fairground. God, how he longed for the easier days when stuff like this never happened.

"Harper?" Dylan said groggily as he struggled up to his feet.

"What?" the word was accompanied by a sharp kick to his stomach, sending him back down to the deck.

Dylan blinked through tears and his own hazy vision to see a very ill looking Harper tower above him. What in the Devine's name was going on in his ship? This wasn't his Mister Harper, not his chief engineer.

__

That bastard Sephiroth lied to me, Dylan growled mentally, _when I get my hands on him, his life won't be worth jack._

Something caused Harper to stop a second attack on the downed captain, the young blonde smiled.

"Tell you what, I've set a bomb in the brig. If you can disarm it within the next 5 minutes, your friends can live. If not…well, they won't," Harper said in a playful tone, "Starting from now."

Dylan gasped in pain as he slowly rose to his feet, allowing Harper to run off in the opposite direction. He didn't have time to go and rescue Trance, he had to save those in the brig.

Ignoring Trance's plea for help, he started his painful run down to the brig, mentally counting down the minutes and seconds his friends had. What in the Devine's name was Harper doing? Why was he doing it?

Every breath he took was painful, the engineer must of broke a rib when he kicked Dylan. He fought the urge to throw up as he bolted down, pushing the pain and the feeling down into the pit of his stomach.

He arrived at the brig's door, cursing at it for being closed but it opened easily, allowing him access to the room. His blue eyes darted across the room, spotting Tyr and Beka flat out in their cells.

A metal container sat in the third cell, a flexi sitting on top of it innocently. The container beeped and fell into a rhythm. Dylan carefully edged into the cell, holding his breath. Bomb disposal was always so much simpler when Rommie did it. No chance for human error, her heartbeat didn't race in her chest or thunder in her ears as she nervously defused it.

He span round as he heard a faint buzz from behind him, the cell's security shield had been enabled. He was trapped in the cell.

His heart raced as he walked over to the container, never releasing his breath. Cursing himself as his hand shook, he picked up the flexi.

"Dammit! HARPER!" he screamed as he threw the flexi to the deck.

****

Captain Hunt

Do you think that I would be that stupid and blow you all up? How insane do you think I am?

Best wishes

Harper

********************


	15. um15! where the heck i have i been? and ...

Uh….apologies for the really long wait…it can't have been too long has it? Nah.…only a couple of wee….oh…right…couple of months. (ducks to avoid all sorts of flying objects being chucked at her) do you all forgive me?

Heck…are you even still interested in this? Thanks to valentine blue, (it's true. I'd only watched it a few times then I wrote I am Death) and to everyone else who has reviewed! I really am sorry! I miss the days when I updated this, like, every second day! Seems my muses have all buggered off and left me….(sob)

Anyhow…I hope people are still interested in this story and I promise, to update more…well, more than once every couple of months.

Cid dante xxxxxxx 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Dylan kicked the metal bulkhead in frustration. He would break the engineer's neck when he got his hands on him. Never had he fallen so easily for a trick so easily.

__

Well, you were in pain when he told you, a voice in his recalled, _I mean, it could just easily of been one. Better safe than sorry._

His gaze fleeted back over to the two unconscious crewman in the other cells. He sat heavily on the bunk, wincing as his ribs flared in protest.

"So, guys, know any good campfire songs?" Dylan looked around, it was rare for him to even visit this place. 

One because he didn't have the crew to place and two…well, all his enemies wound up dead and there was no real Commonwealth authority to hand them over to.

"Ugh…" Beka made a movement of life, her hand slowly moving to her head.

"Beka?" Andromeda's captain leapt to his feet and as near as he could to the security forcefield, "Beka, you alright?"

The answer was slow, "Yeah…wait til I kick Harper's ass."

Tyr's voice sounded slurred for a few seconds, "You'll have to wait. I want to tear him limb from limb first."

"No one is tearing anyone limb from limb. Neither are we going to kick Harper's ass until we know what the hell is going on," Dylan sounded perfectly reasonable in his statement, hiding the fact that he wanted to do the same damn thing.

Beka sat up, allowing the two men a nice view of her bruised check. She sighed.

"I…it felt like it wasn't even Harper. I've never seen him like that," she rubbed the bruise gingerly, "He even called me Captain Valentine. He's never called me that. He was wild…well…not wild but cold."

The Maru's captain shook her head, clearing it of the image of her best friend. She blinked a few times before actually realising where she was.

"Uh…are we in the…" she trailed off, giving Dylan an odd smile.

"Brig yes. I noticed that one too," Dylan copied her smile, "Harper lured me in here, claiming there was a bomb."

Tyr crossed his arms across his chest, "I don't think that it is Master Harper we're dealing with."

Dylan looked at the flexi sitting forgotten on the floor, "Then who?"

The last Kodiak member gave him a shrug with his eyes, "It's something that we will undoubtedly find out."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Angel strolled confidently down through the empty corridor. Enjoying the peaceful silence that had fallen. She missed being able to instantly appear or disappear at will, having to settle to walk everywhere.

__

How very mundane, she thought, _Harper, why are you so skinny if you walk everywhere?_

No answer, which was to be expected. The young human was probably cowering somewhere in his mind, chased back by his fears.

She ticked her mental to do list off, one by one, making sure that each task was done to her satisfaction.

She was quite pleased with herself, a little amazed that Dylan Hunt had fallen for such a blatant trick but pleased. Captain Hunt and Valentine were safely secured in the brig and the Kodiak member also safe beside them. Enjoying the fact that she hadn't had to go a round of fisticuffs with the human. 

The Magog…it posed a problem but she would find it right now and dispose of it.

__

Why the hell would Captain Hunt have a Magog run freely on his ship? Infact, why is the Andromeda Ascendant even allowing it? Surely she recalls what happened to her? Angel paused and frowned, _I'll never understand humans._

She cleared Harper's throat, "Now I have to deal with the purple little alien that's locked in the med bay and that…"

She paused for a second, allowing a very real shiver run down her stolen spine. Even as a ship she feared Magog but as a human? Especially this little creature, she was terrified.

"But the purple one can wait. I'll deal with the Magog first," she felt the cold metal of her weapon against Harper's thigh and felt a little bit more confident of dealing with that little item.

__

Now, where would a stinky, wretched and disgusting Magog hide? she started her walk back down the corridor.

She stopped at a computer screen and stared at it, not impressed with what she saw. The young body she possessed looked like it was going to drop down dead within the next couple of hours.

She raised a cold hand to her captive's face, tracing the features. Amazed at how real it felt, this was her new form. Given time and some help from steroids and a few more muscle enhancing drugs, she would make the universe tremble in fear.

"Harper?" a voice gently growled down from the corridor, "Is that you?"

Angel stiffened for a moment, she didn't believe in luck. She was a ship but she did know what the organics called it when it fell unexpectedly on them. It even had a name, Lady Luck. Lady luck, it seemed was on her side.

"Harper?" the voice called again, "It is I, Rev Bem."

Angel looked up at the metal decking above her, an amused smile pulling on Harper's face.

"Down here Rev," Angel responded as she readied her stolen weapon.

**********

Elsewhere on the Andromeda…

Trance crept slowly along the access tubes, hoping that her movements wouldn't be heard by anyone. Rommie was offline and anything could go wrong.

Her body still hurt from when Harper had thrown her across the room like a rag doll. She hurt mentally as well, her friend was sick and she couldn't help him. She should of seen this happening.

Trance kept mentally kicking herself every chance she got, why hadn't she checked Harper's life signs more? Why had she quickly glanced over any odd brain waves and classed them as normal?

__

This is not good. I should of done something. I should of spotted this, she blinked back tears and tried to keep her mind occupied on something other than blaming herself.

__

Well, it's not like you're piloting the Andromeda into Magog space or that you've sent us all back in time, an optimistic little voice offered her, _take some comfort from that eh?_

Dylan, Beka and Tyr were probably dead, killed by that bomb the new and bad Harper had placed in the brig. There was no way that Dylan could of reached the med bay that fast. Not with his ribs hurting as much as they looked when she had last saw him.

Was she the only living crew left? No…she quickly cast that aside, Rev was still here. Rommie was offline only temporarily, she hoped.

"Rommie?" she whispered, "If you can here me right now, I'd really like some company."

Nothing, no soothing voice or friendly tone greeted her. Just the echoes and soft thuds of her knees against the metal deck as she made her way above the med deck.

The future she had seen so clearly a few days back, looked cloudy to her now. It didn't look to good. She needed time to figure out what the best possible future was and how she could get it.

At the moment, it seemed like Sephiroth was the only way she could get some order restored……


	16. 16

I know, it's been a long time in arriving. I'm so sorry! All the reviews have helped! Just haven't been inspired to write for this story…

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Andromeda Corridor

The ship was deathly quiet, no footsteps from any of the Andromeda's androids could be heard. Not even the holographic persona of the ship could be seen watching over the organic crew.

The ship made flesh stood in the brightly light corridor, her jaw slightly open. As though she was still waiting for the words to fall from her lips. A few feet away from her was Sephiroth, avatar for the One Winged Angel. Head hung as though in shame for his part.

Trance Gemini crept along the seemingly endless corridor, a small toolkit tightly gripped in her hands.

She knew nothing on the intricacies of avatar repair and most of her knowledge expanded to the organic life forms that resided in this universe.

If she could get Sephiroth back online, he would then be able to help her restore the Andromeda, help get Dylan and the others out of wherever the new nasty Harper had put them and get said mentioned engineer back to his old self.

She took a cleansing breath, hoping that it really did go as she had so simply planned it in her mind. She hadn't been blessed with the possible futures or outcomes for this little adventure and she really didn't like being blind.

Being powerless was not a feeling like she liked. She hated being kept in the dark about her friends and she had grown to love each and everyone of the crew. They were like family to her and she would be damned if she was going to let them die well before their time.

Losing a member of the ship was not an option that anyone was willing to accept, Dylan would do everything he could to make sure that they all got out of this alive. He was the type of man who would offer you the stars and moon and would make damn sure you got them.

A fleeting glance was all she could spare Rommie as she walked by her, a little unnerved at the stillness of the woman. Her dark eyes focused on an object or person no longer in sight.

Everyone kept saying what a fantastic job Harper had done in creating Rommie but he done something that would of taken a team of Commonwealth engineers weeks, even months to finish and had gave them the amazing avatar within a space of a few days. All on his own.

Sephiroth's long hair had formed a delicate veil over his features, giving him an almost angelic look to his face. His broad shoulders sagged as though he had fallen asleep in the middle of walking.

Trance nervously chewed her lip, she really knew nothing about fixing mechanical things, she might end up doing more harm than good and then where would she be?

Up the creek without a paddle, she thought as she placed the tool kit down on the deck and picked up a random tool and placed it firmly in her belt.

"Ohhh, I really wish these guys came with instruction guides," Trance sighed as she stepped behind Sephiroth, looking for something that would give her access to the battery of the avatar.

Something made her look behind her, she hated the silence that had taken hold of the ship and she didn't like the fact that Harper was somewhere in the Andromeda, possibly causing more mischief to Rommie and her systems.

The purple wonder would always be amazed at the ingenuity and the creativeness that humans could show, yet in the same instant, humans could be so cruel and callous towards each other.

The Commonwealth had really spared no expense when it came to making avatars. They felt so real, so lifelike. Even she had to admit that it was easy to forget the fact that they weren't living, that they were not human.

Sephiroth's own flesh felt warm to the touch as she slowly slide her hands underneath his uniform jacket. Her fingertips delicately looking for something that didn't feel right and would give away the location of the battery.

Nothing could be felt in her search of the area of the back so she moved to examine the avatars torso. Her cheeks warming in accordance to the touching and squeezing of the male.

"I have to do this okay," she apologized, "I don't now where your battery is and Harper isn't Harper so he can't help…"

A smile tugged on her lips as she could of sworn she felt Sephiroth's abdominal muscles contract slightly under her touch. Again, this search proved fruitless.

Her blush spread to her ears as she thought about other possible places where they might of placed the battery and she couldn't help but wonder what would be said if Sephiroth came to in the middle of the strip search and found Trance looking at things nice young girls shouldn't be.

He's an avatar, it's not like he's anatomically correct, a cheeky voice innocently offered her, _I mean, didn't Harper say that Gabriel wasn't all man?_

She rolled her eyes as she raised her hands and felt around the avatar's shoulders, moving his silver hair out of the way. Her fingertips pressing gently at the base of his neck.

The access button to the battery was situated where the base of the neck meets the spine, she took a few seconds to completely remove Sephiroth's jacket and vest so she could gain better access and she exactly what wires and buttons she would be messing with.

Again, she was surprised at how real his hair felt like hair. It was soft and fine, like he actually took time to look after it.

"You hair is so pretty," Trance whispered, resisting the urge to suddenly tie it in ribbons and make nice little pig tails.

She used Sephiroth's own smetal clasp to pin his hair up so she could look at the access port. It wasn't much larger than Harper's data port but it was made of a different metal.

"Nice and slow…" Trance whispered as she got to work on restoring the avatar.

It felt like hours before she actually got somewhere in regards to restoring some of the functions but she knew it was minutes. All the times she had watched Harper work on Rommie whenever she had some minor problems or when she had ran out of power on that prison planet, had finally paid off.

She stepped back when Sephiroth slowly lifted his head, his green eyes blinking what seemed to be in slow motion.

"……what happened…?" he whispered, it sounded like he was waking up from a long sleep.

"I don't know," Trance stepped in front of him, holding his jacket and vest, the blush she had returning as she handed them to him.

Sephiroth outstretched his hands, wondering when exactly he had been removed of his clothing. The young alien had somehow managed to give his batteries a small boost, one large enough to get him to get to a replacement charger.

"All I know is that the Andromeda is offline and that Harper isn't Harper," Trance offered him a small sad smile.

"Captain Hunt and the other crewmen?" Sephiroth sounded muffled for a few seconds as he pulled on his vest top, showing off how toned his chest was.

"…I think they're dead," Trance took a deep breath, "Harper placed a bomb in the brig…"

Sephiroth raised an eyebrow, the young engineer didn't seem to have any mental issues but he had been caught in the surge that that supposedly knocked Angel off line.

Could the young man's sudden behaviour deviance be a result of something that had happened back on the Angel?

"Tell me, did Mister Harper regain consciousness at all again before this all happened?"

Trance took a moment, her best friend had. He had said something about getting his revenge. That had puzzled her.

"Yeah," she replied, "He said he was going to get his revenge and then he threw me across the room."

Revenge, Sephiroth thought, _he doesn't seem like the type to have any grudges and I get the feeling that this is a tight group of friends so revenge wouldn't be against them._

The purple young woman looked up at him, watching as the avatar's features frowned as he thought about the situation at hand.

"We should go check out the brig," Sephiroth finally said, "The Andromeda may have suffered a hull breach if there was an explosion."

"What about Rommie?" Trance looked back at the brunette avatar.

Sephiroth shrugged, "There's nothing that we can do for her right now. Our main priority is finding the other crewmen and trying to stop Harper from causing more mayhem."

Elsewhere……

No matter how hard she tried to stop the fear raking through Harper's form, it wouldn't give up. It was continuous, she knew that having the small man running around in fear at the moment because he was being chased by Magog in his mind probably wasn't helping.

She needed information about how to build Nova bombs, quickly and efficiently. Where she might be able to get some ready made ones. Who in Harper's memories could get that?

Ah yes, a gentleman by the name of Yayger. A large bounty hunter who had tried to claim the information that had been stored in Harper's mind from the Persied librarian.

In a few minutes, she would come face to face with the beast spawned from the depths of hell and act like a friend, well, long enough to pull the trigger on his newly acquired gun.

Waves of darkness kept washing over her eyesight, making Angel rub Harper's eyes in a vain attempt to the wake up. Angel didn't have time to rest which is probably what this body needed right now.

"Harper?" the magog's voice had concern in it, "Thank the Divine your alright!"

Try as Angel might, she couldn't muster even a fake smile for the monster walking towards her. Harper's body suddenly refusing to take any orders from her as her own fear decided to take grip.

"I'm…I'm alright Rev," Angel had to admit that she was fascinated by the feelings of fear she was experiencing.

She would have to speak to the young male hiding in his mind and ask him why he was allies with one of the creatures that had raped and killed so many of his people.

Rev's voice had a playful yet concerned tone of a parent as he walked towards who he assumed was his friend. Wondering why the small blonde was walking around when he clearly needed bed rest to regain his strength.

"Harper, it is good to see you up and about," he chided softly, "but you really should be resting. What would Trance say if she found out that you were out of bed?"

"Probably, Oh my God Harper," Angel responded, losing the fear in Harper's voice, "Don't."

Rev frowned, unsure of what the mud foot had meant by that. He barely had time to run for cover as a shot ricocheted off a screen, singeing some of his fur.

The wayist monk caught a look of annoyance and confusion both flash in the blonde's eyes as he gave out a frustrated cry. Harper, it seemed was having trouble trying to hold the weapon still.

Harper's Mind…..

"Oh no you don't!" Harper cried out as he lunged for the holographic form of the Angel.

"Leave my friends alone!" the engineer growled as he dove right through Angel as she disappeared.

He rolled with his dive, scrambling to his feet as he span around. Waiting for Angel or for the Magog that were currently running around in his mind to come and get him.

You really should of stayed in bed this morning, Seamus, he told himself, _this could of all been avoided._

That brought a smile to his face as. Yeah, right. The Andromeda and her crew seemed to have trouble as a pet, it followed them no matter what planet they went to.

Somebody has to be leaving breadcrumbs lying about the universe, Harper crouched down low, waiting for Angel or any of the creatures that were hunting him to arrive.

There was no way that he was going to let the evil Angel hurt any more of his friends. Magog or not, Rev Bem was his friend and he had saved his life on more than one occasion. Had shown him that the Devine cared for all and everyone had a place in the universe.

"This is my mind," Harper whispered, "I make the rules and playing fields."

He stood up from his hiding place, looking braver than he actually felt. If he went back to the bridge, he might be able to get control of his body, get some kind of a message out to the others to let them know that he wasn't really bad.

"Hello Harper," a large hand grabbed him by the throat and pulled him backwards, the drumming of the Magog getting closer.

"I think we all know why I'm here," the bounty hunter whispered harshly into his ear.

Harper's eyes went wide, "I guess it's not to trade surfing tips is it?"

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Hey, I know I've spelt that bounty hunter's name wrong…the correct spelling would be greatly appreciated…that's even if I have the name right!!

No apologies for this tardiness…well, maybe a little!


End file.
